The Kannada film industry is celebrating the 61st birthday of V Ravichandran, the 'Crazy Star' who is hailed as a trend setter.
Though he arrived with the grand musical 'Premaloka' (1987), 'Ranadheera' (1988), is what got me hooked to him. There are various reasons: his performance, quirkiness and flamboyance. His movies like 'Anjada Gandu' (1988), 'Gopikrishna' (1992), 'Gurubrahma' (1992) have aged well and songs by his long-time collaborator Hamsalekha being the biggest strength of his career.
The fact that he dons multiple hats puts him in the elite group of filmmakers from Kannada like Shankar Nag, Upendra and Sudeep. Apart from carrying the legacy of his father N Veeraswami's banner Eshwari Productions, Ravichandran has established himself as an all-rounder, involving himself in music direction, and even song writing, apart from the primary roles of acting, directing, and music direction.
Ravichandran is always known for big-scale projects. His layered approach in 'Kindari Jogi' (1989), which gave a satirical account of the village politics, was not received well by the audience, though the movie and the plot are still relevant today. He then went on to make 'Shanthi Kranthi' (1991) touted to be the most expensive Indian film back then. Naturally so, as it starred superstars like Rajinikanth and Nagarjuna in the Tamil and Telugu versions respectively. This dream project tanked at the box-office, and left Ravichandran in huge financial distress. This setback pushed him to remake commercial blockbusters and this move revived his career as he gave back-to-back blockbusters — 'Ramachari' (1991), 'Halli Meshtru' (1992), 'Annayya' (1993), 'Sriramachandra' (1992), 'Guru Brahma' (1992) to name a few.
In many of the remakes, he had the advantage of working with senior filmmakers like D Rajendra Babu, and the films had charactres relatable to the Kannada audience. It's striking to note that Ravichandran never hesistated to feature in multi-starrers. He shared the screen with Ambareesh, Ramesh Aravind, Shivarajkumar, Jaggesh and others. However, his go-to character actors have been Srinath, Lokesh, Devraj, Anant Nag and Prakash Raj – we have seen them all in a variety roles, especially in popular films such as 'Ranadheera', 'Kindarijogi', 'Abhimanyu' (1990), 'Shanti Kranti', 'Bannada Gejje' (1990), 'Yuddha Kaanda' (1989), 'Gopi Krishna', 'Ramachari', 'Preethsod Thappa' (1998) etc,.
In his prime, he was Sandalwood's numero uno lover boy, charming the youngsters with the chemistry he struck with his female co-stars such as Juhi Chawla, Khushboo, Amala, Sudharani and Malashree to name a few. Though he wasn't an extraordinary dancer, Ravichandran caught our attention with his attires,— the famous jazzy shiny-shimmery leather suit and an electric guitar or the local white panche.
He has sort of stayed relevant as an actor by playing his age in 'Manikya', 'Mungaru Male 2' and 'Drishyam'.
In his musical journey post the split with Hamsalekha, his work in 'Ekangi' stands out. Popular numbers from his other projects like 'Hatavadi' (2006), 'Malla' (2004) and 'Kodandarama' (2002) are constants in popular Kannada music reality shows.
That said, his partnership with Hamsalekha will always be an unforgettable one. It requires another piece to describe the quality of contribution from the duo to KFI. Though the legendary SP Balasubrahmanyam, S Janaki and KS Chitra always topped the charts, Ravichandran and Hamsalekha always made sure that KJ Yesudas and Mano are featured in at least one of the songs in the album.
Though he may not be the force that he once was, the magic of Ravichandran continues to charm the Kannada audience.
(The author is a film critic).