With Rangoon scheduled to hit the screens on June 9, the film’s director Rajkumar Periasamy, a former assistant to director AR Murugadoss, is ecstatic about finally getting to make his directorial debut, and what’s more, under his mentor’s production banner.
“Every assistant who has worked and will be working in the future with AR Murugadoss is lucky. It’s not just the experience of getting to work with him; he also takes extra care to make sure that our career goes in the right path,” says Rajkumar, who has shot the film in Chennai and Burma.
Talking about Rangoon, the director says the film is “about the survival of a youngster in a world in which he belongs.”
The story is scripted around Venkat, a Tamil Burmese repatriate played by Gautham Karthik. But the director is at pains to emphasise that “while everyone thinks the film will be about Burmese descendants in Chennai, that’s just the backdrop in which the story happens.”
He adds, “The film will open people’s eyes to a part of our world that hasn’t really been looked at before.”
The director says that he has spent a considerable amount of time researching for the film. “But we have also made sure that it doesn’t look like a documentary.
For commercial purposes, we’ve covered the backstory in a different format which has come out really well.” Rajkumar also praises Gautham Karthik for the hard work he put in for this film. “He plays a goldsmith, and he had to train for it. His transformation was quite a challenge. He had to work on his dialect, body language, accent, and mannerisms. We shot in real locations and he was also not used to shooting amid the public. But he was quick to get used to the style. He also attended workshops for this film.”
Sana Makbul is making her Tamil debut with this film. Well-known Malayalam actor Siddique, too, is making his foray into Tamil cinema. “Siddique plays a sweet role, and acts as a mentor to Gautham’s character. His role has a lot of positive appeal. The film also has a good number of upcoming and first-time actors,” says Rajkumar. With music by RH Vikram and background score by Vishal Chandrashekhar, the audio was released yesterday.