# Peranmai

Peranmai (transl. Valour) is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language action adventure film directed by S. P. Jananathan and produced by Ayngaran International. It stars Ravi Mohan and Roland Kickinger, with Dhansika, Saranya Nag, Varsha Ashwathi, Liyasree and Vasundhara Kashyap in the female leads, while Urvashi, Vadivelu, and Ponvannan play supporting roles. The music was composed by Vidyasagar.
The film revolves around Dhuruvan, a tribal forest guard who works for the welfare of his tribe and spreads awareness among them. While on a trekking with five college girls, who initially mistreated him due to his caste, they stumble on a group of foreign mercenaries led by Anderson (Roland Kickinger), who are planning to stop India's scientific project by destroying a rocket launch by using a missile. The bonding of team and defeating the potential threat forms the crux of the story.
The film opened to audiences worldwide on 16 October 2009, coinciding with Diwali. The core plot is loosely based on the 1972 Soviet film The Dawns Here Are Quiet.

## Plot

Dhuruvan is a trainer at an NCC camp for women cadets. Being from a tribe, he is constantly degraded by his superior ranger Ganapathiram for his caste and rough persona, and framed for committing inappropriate acts by other cadets, but their warden Victoria sympathises for him. He selects five girls – Jennifer, Ajitha, Thulasi, Susheela, and Kalpana – who are the most insolent and disobedient girls in the troop for an expedition, intending to provide them with better training. As an attempt to make a practical joke, the girls post a complaint to Ganapathiram claiming that they did not feel safe with Dhuruvan and that he was responsible for whatever happens to them and keep it in the complaint box. Meanwhile, the expedition begins, and while Dhuruvan is caught up in some procedures at the forest checkpost, the girls buy condoms and other inappropriate items and start the jeep, nonchalantly driving it and running it down the slope of a hill. After losing the vehicle, the troop decides to stay in the forest for the night and go by an alternate route the next morning. Slowly, the girls start to bond with Dhuruvan. Once, Kalpana sees two foreigners with advanced armaments and in military gear in the Indian forest. Dhuruvan guesses that they might are heading towards the direction of the Indian satellite research station in the forest to destroy their project of launching a rocket. He plans that if they want to sabotage the space mission, they would reach the banks of Toonghum Lake within five hours. He knows a better route to go to the safe place in the opposite bank within 4.5 hours. He tells the girls to go back and inform Ganapathiram about them and bring extra forces, but the girls disagree and go with Dhuruvan. They reach the opposite bank, and to their shock, they find that they are actually 16 men.
Dhuruvan analyses that the men are out to sabotage the space mission and makes plans to defeat the operation of the foreign mercenaries. He sends Ajitha back to inform the officials, and the rest join him in the operation. She bids them goodbye, and Susheela tells her to tear the complaint letter as they wrote it without understanding Dhuruvan's value, before Ganapathiram sees it. However, on the way back, she gets trapped in quicksand and dies. Dhuruvan manages to lodge their troop ahead of mercenaries by his navigation acumen. Later, he deliberately obstructs the movement of mercenaries by cutting the trees to distract them. Anderson, the leader of the foreign mercenary group, decides to stay back until a clear notion from the opposite side. He deploys two of his men to investigate the situation. However, Dhuruvan successfully kills the two men. Anderson sends three men – Thompson, George and Edwin – to the opposite side to find out what happened to the two men; on the other hand, Dhuruvan's troops are eagerly waiting for them to collect their armaments. Dhuruvan kills George and Edwin, but Thompson manages to escape. When Anderson finds that he has lost four men of his group, he decides to kill whoever is obstructing him.
Dhuruvan's troops cleverly plant the land mines they acquired from one of the four men they killed. As per their expectation, one of the mercenaries steps on a land mine and dies. This scares them, and Anderson and another man Benny decide to go and hunt for the rest of the land mines, while the others would set up a camp there. That night, Dhuruvan and his troops break into their camp and seize one of two boxes that the mercenaries carry around with them, expecting it to contain information about the air missile after killing two of them. By the next morning, Anderson and Benny find two men dead and one box lost, and they get enraged at Dhuruvan and his troops. Anderson tells Benny to take three men to the site of the rocket launch and launch the missile. He takes the rest of his men to destroy Dhuruvan and the girls, which turns into a war.
On the other side, Ganapathiram finds the complaint letter, gathers his team, and goes to the forest checkpoint to find out what happened. The storekeeper tells him what happened and that condoms were purchased. Assuming that Dhuruvan kidnapped the girls, Ganapathiram and his officers destroy Dhuruvan's community and homes and exile them from the area while degrading their lower caste status. He eventually finds Ajitha's corpse in the quicksand of the river and assumes that Dhuruvan raped and killed her. Ganapathiram frames Dhuruvan as a serial killer to the district collector, who, with Ganapathiram's permission, issues a shoot-at-sight order for Dhuruvan.
Dhuruvan and the girls kill three of the mercenaries who were with Anderson. Benny tells Collin, one of the three men who came with him, to stay and guard the box, where the missile is while they go to help Anderson in the war. After finding their secret signal, Anderson kills Susheela and hangs her from a tree. The girls and Dhuruvan get heartbroken at her death and bury her with an NCC tribute. The girls kill Thompson and the two other men except Anderson, Benny, and Collin. Benny finds Dhuruvan and the girls, but Dhruvan trashes him and makes him lure Anderson, after which Dhuruvan kills Benny with the girls' help. Dhuruvan goes in search of Anderson, while the girls go to stop the missile launch. While Dhuruvan goes to find Anderson, Ganapathiram catches Dhuruvan and tries to shoot him. Dhuruvan tries to reveal the situation but fails. Ganapathiram tries to call his men through his walkie-talkie to kill Dhuruvan as he was running out of bullets. Dhuruvan throws the walkie-talkie, beats Ganapathiram, and escapes. When Ganapathiram goes to take the walkie-talkie, he realises the situation when he sees the corpses of the mercenaries and realises that Dhuruvan killed them. Ganapathiram reveals the situation to the collector and arrogantly tells him that he will produce the dead bodies in front of him.
At the climax, Dhuruvan and Anderson fight face-to-face where Dhuruvan confronts and defeats Anderson, and the girls kill Collin and tries to disarm the counter missile from firing the space rocket. After an intense fight between the men, Dhuruvan manages to kill Anderson. Dhuruvan finally reaches the site of the rocket launch and helps the girls. He increases the time set of the missile by 25 seconds and changes it direction to the left. The Indian space rocket launches from the station and speeds up into the atmosphere. After 25 seconds, the counter missile diverted from its direction explodes into the desolate forest. The troop prides themselves for being successful on their mission but feel bad for Dhuruvan as his bravery will never be recognised due to his caste. In the end, Ganapathiram is awarded by the Indian government for "bravery", while Dhuruvan is back at the camp training another set of new NCC cadets. The film ends with the girls bidding a tearful goodbye, remembering Ajitha and Susheela.

## Cast

* Ravi Mohan as Dhuruvan
* Roland Kickinger as Anderson
* Svilen Kamburov as Benny
* Dhansika as Jennifer
* Saranya Nag as Ajitha
* Varsha Ashwathi as Thulasi
* Liyasree as Susheela
* Vasundhara Kashyap as Kalpana
* Urvashi as Victoria Madam
* Vadivelu as Soosai
* Ramya Krishnan as Malini Devi, Dhurvan's mother
* Mohan Raman as Balachandran, Dhurvan's father
* Ponvannan as Ganapathiram
* Trotsky Marudu as Scientist
* O. A. K. Sundar as Collector
* Boys Rajan

## Production

Ravi underwent immense physical training for the role, that included avoiding oil, rice and salt for over a year. He shed 22 kg of weight in 22 days. The film began shoot on 5 March 2008 at Mancholai, Papanasam and Ambasamuthiram. The set for Ravi's village was built at dense forest of Ambasamuthiram.

## Soundtrack

The music was composed by Vidyasagar. All lyrics were written by Vairamuthu. The audio was released at Sathyam Cinemas on 21 September 2009. Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff.com wrote "In most of the songs, Vidhyasagar has slipped into a familiar template, so it is worth just one listen".
* "Kaattu Puli Adichu" by KK and Jassie Gift
* "Kaadu Kaalai Katta" by Madhu Balakrishnan
* "Yera Thala" by Sadhana Sargam
* "When The Boys" by Sonia Irabar and Sianed Jones
* "Thuppaaki Penne" by Pop Shalini, Megha, Febi and SuVi

## Release and reception

Peranmai was released on 16 October 2009, Diwali day. Producers Ayngaran International distributed the film themselves. Sify wrote, "Here is a definitive movie with a moral framework, and commitment along with a stunning and realistic climax" and also praising Ravi's acting. Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff.com wrote, "A movie like this thrives on characters that knock against each other, and new emotions emerge but S P Jhananathan has thrust so many platitudes, morals and politics into it that it ends up being inadvertently hilarious. It's a script that looks good only on paper, filled with good intentions but hopelessly flawed".
Bhama Devi Ravi of The Times of India wrote, "if you are one of those passionate followers of Tamil cinema, and get all twitchy and charged up over the sameness in formula-driven action films and have been demanding at least a fresh storyline as a minimum requirement to escape a sense of deja vu, you can relax. Peraanmai, which attempts to offer that difference, is a refreshing change". Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu wrote, "Despite the scepticism you feel, and the initial slowness, Peraanmai promises thrilling action in the second half", lauding the stuntwork and Ravi's performance.

## Accolades

The film won in three categories at the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards: Stunt Coordinator (Miracle Michael), Best Art Director (T. Selvakumar) and Best Audiographer (T. Udaykumar).