What is it about games that make them so integral to our lives? Their vocabulary has slipped into everyday speech, shaping the way we communicate and even the way we understand life. Whether it is “checkmate” from chess or “back to square one” from the traditional Snakes and Ladders, such phrases remind us how deeply games are woven into our culture. Is it any surprise, then, that so many of our films are named after games?
I am not a film buff myself, but with an actor as Chief Minister and the wild enthusiasm for the films all around, it is hard to miss the connection. As I started to dig, I was fascinated by the number of films that carry the name of a game. When it does, the choice is deliberate: the game is expected to carry meaning beyond play. Sometimes it shapes the narrative itself; sometimes it signals tone or structure; and occasionally, it simply evokes a cultural memory.
Directed by SP Muthuraman and starring Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, Aadu Puli Aatam is an action drama about shifting loyalties, crime, and power. The title comes from the traditional Tamil game ‘Aadu Puli Aatam’ (goats and tigers), an asymmetric strategy game where three tigers face fifteen goats across a board. The name of the game becomes a clue to understanding the conflict, a guide to the viewer to read the narrative as a contest between unequal forces, between power and vulnerability and between entrapment and escape.
Another example is the Telugu film Ashta Chamma. Thisromantic comedy is built around mistaken and social misunderstandings and follows multiple characters whose lives are intertwined. The title comes from ‘Ashta Chemma’, a traditional South Indian cross-and-circle dice game, involving multiple players and movement determined by moves players choose and the throw of the dice. With each player having multiple game pieces and multiple moves the interactions on the board are numerous. Some are planned and others are at the mercy of the dice. The title of the film perhaps was meant to refer to the numerous interactions among the characters — a mirror almost to those on the board.
Yet another film I came across was Paramapadham Vilayattu — a political thriller that centres on a doctor caught in a web of conspiracy following the death of a powerful politician. The story unfolds through layers of manipulation, ambition, and shifting power. ‘Parama Padam’ is the name for the traditional game of Snakes and Ladders where every snake represents a vice and every ladder a virtue. The player who gathers virtues by climbing every ladder is the one to reach Parama Pada or the highest place. This is thus a game structured around sudden ascent and steep downfall much like the character in the film.
A game name becomes a film title only when it can be read as more than just a game — as structure, as metaphor, or as mood. Our films seek out games that contain narrative possibility — the unequal power struggle of ‘Aadu Puli’, the rise and fall of ‘Param Padam’, or the interactive movement of ‘Ashta Chemma’.