Guna

Recently, I watched this social media hyped movie Manjummel Boys. In this movie, there is a cameo song of Kamal Haasan's movie Guna (1991). Eventually, This song "Kanmani Anbodu Kadhalan" revived on social media due to its relativity with cave sequence and offcourse the legendary music composer Ilaiyaraaja. Scrolling through Reels on Instagram I found the original video of this song and this intrigued me to watch this movie.

These events took me to watch Guna movie. So I started searching for a English subtitle version of this movie because I am a North Indian person and luckily Airtel Xstream helped me out. It's available on YouTube in Tamil but the subtitles are missing. So Airtel Xstream has it.

The story revolves around a mentally disturbed man Guna who dreams of a Goddess named Abhirami to come and marry him. One day seeing a girl at the temple he presumed her as Abhirami and kidnap her.

This movie brings so much satisfaction by witnessing its soulful story and innocent characters. A Bombay actress Roshini plays Abhirami and unfortunately, it was her first and last screen appearance as she moved to USA and quit acting.

I hope this movie brings joy for you as well. Thanks!

This is one of the best movies I've ever seen. Of course, it takes a lot to understand the character of Guna in the movie. But it sure was a truly realistic character and Kamal Hassan is at his best in the title role. It is perhaps one of the best movies that describe what pure-love means to a guy who grows up totally devoid of it. The movie delves deep into the psyche of the viewers and the cast is really excellent. Ilayaraja's score and BGM add to the excellence of this movie. Not recommended for those who prefer the usual masala-junk seen in most of Indian movies. No wonder, it wasn't a hit among the tested-formula-preferring-mass of tamil audience. But I for sure have seen this movie over 10 times and this movie has stayed in my mind as one of THE GREATEST movies. Make sure you watch it coz, we don't get movies like these any more !!!

As the summary says, I think this is the best movie from Tamil Cinema. The intricacies displayed in this movie are unparalleled and something never seen in Tamil cinema!! That it comes as no surprise that this movie failed in the BO where junk-commercial movies are only expected to do well(Except in some urban centres where it was raved about, amongst the youth and Kamal Haasan's admirers). The film had since then acquired a cult status among the Tamil movie audience!

The greatest thing about the movie is , as much as for its intricacies which goes uncomprehending for normal viewers, it is equally a simple movie! If you have seen the movie "One flew over the cuckoo's nest", then you will be able to grasp "Guna" better. The screenplay is one of the best to have been written for Tamil Cinema. The out of the world music rendering by Ilaiyaaraja and Kamal Haasan's brilliant poignant acting makes this movie a memorabilia! If this movie doesn't deserve 10/10 then NO Tamil movie does! A must see movie for ANYONE ! Even if you haven't ever seen a Tamil movie then make this the only one. You would get the glimpse of the best of Tamil cinema with THE best technicians of there Kamal Haasan, Ilayaraja, at their finest!

Like many Kamal Hassan movies, this was a movie that was under appreciated during it's release and gained it's cult status only over time. This movie has served as the inspiration behind many others with similar themes that came out decades later. It's a story of madness, obsession, tragedy and eternal love, with impeccable performances and outstanding cinematography. Guna is a movie that portrays extreme contrasts in it's subject matter. On one hand it's a love story at it's purest, where the millionaire heiress having lost both her parents by then, realizes that her crazy abductor is a much better person than the people she is surrounded by all circling her like vultures for her money, and a life with Guna seeming more meaningful to her than the life she had lived till then. On the other hand, you see the sleaziness of life in brothels, the hero having been raised in one due to his birth father abandoning his mother, and the dismal plight of the under privileged suffering from mental illness. The hero cannot bear the disgust of his existence that he convinces himself to be god Siva who has taken this birth only to be cleansed by Abhirami when they unite in marital bliss. A life riddled with mental illness, abandonment issues, and abuse, his only hope and aim being to find Abhirami so he can be cleansed and start anew with a clean slate. Illayaraja's legendary music adds more life to this already brilliant movie.

I need not make mention of how good kamal hassan is at acting....you actually cant call it acting.It can be called getting under the skin of the character and portraying a realistic look on the role.

Kamal draws parallels with the late Sivaji Ganesan...who is admired now even after his sad demise some years back.

I get the opportunity to watch GUNA only on television nowadays...as i was too young to have watched it in theatres.Kamal's acting was way too awesome in the movie...and as another IMDb user suggested,films of such high caliber rarely meet commercial box-offices success.The failure of this movie to rake in money does not deter us from appreciating the performance delivered by Kamal.

Of course he has given awesome performances in other movies like devar magan,mahanadhi,hey ram and many many more movies....this movie stays close to my heart.

The song KANMANI ANBODU is still a melodious song to reckon with now...15 years after the movie was released.The only two things to talk about in this movie is Kamal's acting and Santhana Barathi's acting!!!