Dharmayugaya, the Sinhala remake of Malayalam blockbuster Drishyam, was released in Sri Lanka in July.
The film starring veteran Sri Lankan actor Jackson Anthony who plays the role which Kerala superstar Mohan Lal brought to life in the original. The film was made in four other Indian languages: Drishyam in Hindi, Papanasam in Tamil, Drushyam in Telugu and Drishya in Kannada. Kamal Haasan and Ajay Devgan played the leads in Tamil and Hindi remakes respectively.
The Sinhala version was directed by Cheyyar Ravi who is known for two successful Tamil films and many acclaimed television serials. He passed away due to cardiac arrest on 11 March this year while directing a TV series. The remake, also starring Dilhani Ekanayake, Roshan Pilapitiya, Kusum Renu and Douglas Ranasinghe has been produced by MTV channel.
The original Malayalam film made in 2013 emerged as a super hit becoming the highest grossing film in Kerala till Pulimurugan, also starring Mohan Lal, broke its record last year. Drishyam won numerous accolades including the Kerala State Film Award for Best Popular Film and the Filmfare Award for Best Film – Malayalam and screened at the 45th International Film Festival of India and the 8th Asian Film Festival.
As I remember a mega project of this nature involving India and Sri Lanka is never heard of, except for 1957 film Devasundari made in Sinhala, Kannada and Malayalam languages. Sri Lankan veteran actor Joe Abeyewickrama, Rajkumar and Sathyan played the lead roles respectively.
Original Malayalam version emerged as a super hit becoming the highest grossing film in Kerala till Pulimurugan, also starring Mohan Lal, shattered its record last year.
The original has been said to be inspired by The Devotion of Suspect X, a Japanese novel. Ekta Kapoor, who purchased the Hindi movie rights of the novel, sent a legal notice to the makers of the film.
Director of the original Malayalam, Jeethu Joseph, said in a statement that after seeing the Japanese film Suspect X, an adaptation of the Japanese novel, he thought there could be similarities between his film and the Japanese movie. Joseph also directed the Tamil language version.
“But my film is neither an adaptation nor a copy,” he clarified. “The Japanese film is also about a murder cover-up and hence the allegation. Similarities are quite common in the works of creators and that shouldn’t be made into an issue”. Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon was also cited as an inspiration for the film.
In another alleged plagiarism claim in 2014 film director Sathish Paul filed a copyright infringement suit against the makers of Drishyam, saying that it had similarities to his script titled Oru Mazhakkalathu, written in 2013. The court passed an order saying that the movie had prima facie similarities to Sathish’ script, but allowed the making of the Tamil version Papanasam to proceed. The case was dismissed in March 2015 as it was proved that Director Jospeh had written the script in 2011.
Sinhala actor Douglas Ranasinghe who plays a supporting role speaking to the popular Sinhala film weekly Sarasaviya said he is sure that Dharmayugaya will do well at the Sri Lankan box office, adding that it is an unusual film. He plays the supporting role played by Siddique in Malayalam version and Rajat Kapoor in the Hindi film. – Somasiri Munasinghe
