Urumi is a Malayalam historical-fantasy film directed bySantosh Sivan, written by Shankar Ramakrishnan, and produced by Prithviraj, Shaji Natesan, and Santosh Sivan under their new production company, August Cinema. It stars Prithviraj, Genelia D'Souza, Prabhu Deva, Nithya Menon, Jagathy Sreekumar, Alexx ONell, and Robin Pratt, and features Vidya Balan, Arya and Tabu in cameo roles.
The film is being made at a budget of more than 20 crore rupees, making it the second most expensive Malayalam film ever made afterPazhassi Raja (2009). Urumi gets a dubbed release in Tamil as Padhinaitham Nootrandu Uraivaal and English as Vasco da Gama. The film has received international attention with the screening of its trailer at the Hong Kong film festival.
Premise
Urumi is set in the backdrop of the fierce warrior clans of Northern Kerala in the sixteenth century and focuses on the cult of Chirakkal Kelu Nayanar (Prithviraj), a man with an epic mission. His target and mission is Dom Vasco da Gama (Alexx ONell), the Viceroy of Portuguese Empire in India. The film is spread between the second and third visit of Gama to India and chronicles a varied version of how Vasco da Gama could have met a bloody death in AD 1524. In the journey of Kelu Nayanar, he has to encounter the seamless conflicts within the kinsmen and also kings, ministers, peasants and a warring Muslim warrior princess Ayesha (Genelia) of the famed Arackal Sultanat. Kelu has a forte, a legendary golden Urumi, specially made from the left over ornaments of the dead women and children who were burnt alive in the massacre of a Mecca Ship, Miri, commanded to be set on fire and drowned by Vasco da Gama during his second visit to Kerala in AD 1502. Kelu is supported by Vavvali (Prabhudeva), his childhood friend and in a way his elder brother, though he comes from the Muslim neighborhood. The film also has mystical characters like Vidya Balan, who plays Makkom, a displaced Devi Deity in the Oracle form. Kelu tracks his mission through the wild roads of treachery, treason and a hidden passion to reach a master plan to create his own army against the mighty Empire. His action in creating an organized revolt becomes the first of its kind movement against the first Colonial advance in India.
Cast
- Prithviraj as Chirakkal Kelu Nayanar and Krishnadas
- Prabhu Deva as Vavvali
- Arya as Chirakkal Kothuwal and Thandachan
- Genelia D'Souza as Princess Aeysha of Arackal
- Nithya Menon as Chirakkal Princess Bala
- Jagathy Sreekumar as Chenichery Kurup, a noble of Chirakkal Court
- Amol Gupte as Chirakkal Maharaja
- Ankur Sharma as Chirakkal Crown Prince Bhanu Vikraman
- Alexx ONell as Estêvão da Gama
- Robin Pratt as Vasco Da Gama
- Bharath J as Shashi Pannalal
- Vidya Balan as Makkom
- Tabu (guest appearance)
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