One of India's top indie auteurs has hooked up with one of South India's biggest movie stars to present Mallaikottai Vaaliban, a big time action spectacle that looks spectacular.
Director Lijo Jose Pellissery took the arthouse world by storm with the intense action of 2019's Jallikattu. In the intervening years he's made a pair of strikingly different films, 2020's mystical horror films Churuli (Spiral) and 2022's ethereal magical realist masterpiece Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam (Like An Afternoon Dream). The latter film found him working with one of Malayalam cinema's biggest stars, Mammootty, and Malaikottai Vaaliban has him linking up with the other big daddy of the region's cinema, Mohanlal (Drishyam, Iruvar).
Malaikottai Vaaliban is a period piece about a wrestler who is unmatched in the ring going up against new foes, all against the backdrop of the imperialist occupation in the last century. Indian productions are notoriously tight-lipped about plot details, but the visuals in today's trailer shot by Madhu Neelakandan (Churuli, Merry Christmas) and the score by regular Pellissery collaborator Prashant Pillai, are more than enough to pique our interest.
Malaikottai Vaaliban opens in cinemas worldwide on January 25th, check for local showtimes, you might be surprised.