Simbu has transformed himself for ‘Maanaadu’, says Venkat Prabhu

Tamil film Maanaadu’s journey has been eventful. Facing its share of delays, the project has been in the works for a few years now. But it now looks like the Simbu-starrer will reach theatres soon.

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The team Maanaadu including Simbu, director Venkat Prabhu and Kalyani Priyadarshan, went live in a Twitter Spaces interaction, to celebrate the launch of the single, ‘Meherezyla’, composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and written by Madhan Karky.

Simbu said, “Maanaadu kept getting pushed for various reasons. But then, I feel that it has helped us. I have been acting since childhood, so for me, a project has to have an interest factor that pulls me towards it. This film had that; I was very involved in the process and in my character.”

Director Venkat Prabhu, who earlier helmed Ajith’s Mankatha, said that Maanaadu was his biggest project so far. Touted to be an action thriller, it will feature the loop genre, a cinematic plot device where characters re-experience a span of time that is repeated, sometimes more than once.

“It will be different from the usual sensibilities Tamil cinema audiences are used to and be fresh from a storytelling point of view,” he stated, “A mass hero usually has doubts about such experiments but Simbu was encouraging of the concept from the beginning. He has transformed himself for the film. The face-off between Simbu and SJ Suryah will be the highlight. As the film’s making mostly involved a crowd, it was difficult shooting it, especially after the onset of the pandemic.”

Produced by Suresh Kamatchi, the film has cinematography by Richard Nathan and has been edited by Praveen KL. It is expected to hit screens later this year.