The audio CD of Cloud Nine Movies' first film “Thoonganagaram”, produced by Thayanidhi Azhagiri and Vivek Rathnavel, was launched recently by director Gautham Vasudev Menon and received by director Lingusamy. Directors K.V.Anand, K.S.Ravikumar, Ameer, Sasi Kumar and Samudirakani spoke on the occasion. An associate of director K.S.Ravikumar, Gaurav, who makes his directorial debut, said “Thoonganagaram” was another name for Madurai.
“As far as this film is concerned, everything is new. We selected 70 from as many as 3,000 people from Madurai to act in it. We shot Madurai's popular ‘Chitirai Thiruviza' for nearly four days. For the first time, we shot from the gopuram of the Madurai Meenakshi temple.
The music has been scored by Sundar C.Babu and recorded at Sono Records, Prague, the very studio where ace director Steven Spielberg worked for many of his films. Also it was here music director A. R. Rahman recorded the music for his first Hollywood film, “The Warriors of the Heaven and Earth”. There are seven numbers in the album, each different from the other. ‘Vaigai siricha' sung by Palghat Sriram tells us why Madurai is called “Thoonganagaram”. The lyrics for the song have been penned by S. Gnanakaravel. ‘Koorana Parvaigal', written by Thamarai, is a melody where Hariharan excels with Chinmayi. ‘Kalyanam' in yesteryear actor Chandrababu's voice has been remixed in an interesting way with Karthik singing along for Narayana Kavi's lines. ‘Ettu Kangalukkum' in the beautiful voice of Madhu Balakrishnan and written by S.Gnanakaravel scores among the best in the album. ‘Nee Siricha Kondattam', penned by S. Annamalai and sung by Shankar Mahadevan, is notable. The last two songs in the album are ‘Rhythm' and the theme song of “Thoonganagaram”.
Sankarankoil
Sivadharshini Cine Aarts “Sankarankoil” is the second outing of stunt master ‘Kanal' Kannan as actor in the lead role. He has earlier played the hero in “Satru Mun Kidaitha Thagaval”. In this film, new face Roopika is being paired with him. The others in the cast include Rohini, Ponvannan, ‘Ganja' Karuppu, Singampuli, JS and Sams. Prabhu plays a meaty role as Muthuvel while Nasser and K. S. Ravikumar appear in important roles. T. Ram Tulasi handles the camera, while newcomer Rajni composes the music. P. N. Palanivelraja has written the story, screenplay and dialogue in addition to directing the film. Hemavathi Kannan produces the movie.
There are six songs in the film of which ‘Manushana Manushan', written by Viveka and sung by the music director himself, scores as the best. ‘Thenpandi Makkalin' is a pleasant number sung by Sriram and written by Mohanrajan. The song ‘Kottapakkum', written by Snegan, showcases the varied range of singer Malathi — she sings it with Sunandhan. Snegan has also written the sensual duet ‘Puli Varuthu' to which Mukesh and Priyadarshini have lent their voice. ‘Mudhan Mudhalaka', again written by Snegan and sung by Balaji and Surmukhi, is delightful. ‘Enga Kulasamy', sung by Rajini, is a small piece written by Mohanrajan.
