Inspired or copied?

Story plagiarism in Tamil cinema is assuming alarming proportions. Every other film of biggies seems to get into issues over claims that their stories were stolen.

Vijay's Kaththi and Sarkar and the yet to release Bigil, Ajith's Vivegam and Jayam Ravi's Comali and earlier Bogan, Vijay Sethupathi's 96, Karthi’s Madras, Rajinikanth’s  Lingaa  and Suriya’s upcoming film Kaappaan are on a long list of films about which queries have come up with regard to the origin of their stories.

Kaappaan comes in the wake of a plagiarism case against Thalapathy Vijay’s Diwali release Bigil being dismissed by the Chennai Civil Court on Monday.  Suriya’s action thriller, which also has Mohanlal, Arya and Sayeesha in the lead, was written and directed by KV Anand, co-written by Pattukottai Prabhakar and bankrolled by Lyca Productions.

BIGIL Second look

 John Charles, who claims he has been in the Tamil film industry for over a decade, alleged that the story of Kaappaan is a blatant copy of his script called ‘Saravedi’. He maintained that he has had copyright over the script since 2016 and that he shared the story with the director of Kaappaan, KV Anand who had apparently copied it for his film. Charles added that he was shocked to see the promo videos on TV as it had striking similarities with his story. Since the film is expected to hit the marquee on September 20, the court has adjourned the case to September 4.  Charles had sought an interim stay, which was not granted.

A person named K.P. Selvah has filed a suit against the Atlee-directed and AGS Entertainment-produced Bigil, a person claiming that Thalapathy 63, later named Bigil, violated the copyright of his story registered with the Writer's Association and sought an order of injunction restraining the shoot and release of the movie . Director Atlee and AGS opposed the suit and asked for rejection of the plaint itself, arguing that there was no cause of action even for filing such a suit. Selvah backtracked and filed an application to withdraw the suit itself with liberty to file a fresh suit. The court permitted withdrawal of the suit but declined permission to institute a fresh suit and dismissed it.

This is not the first time a Vijay film has been dragged into plagiarism controversy.

Vijay’s Sarkar was embroiled similarly when writer and assistant director Varun Rajendran alleged that director AR Murugadoss had copied his story ‘Sengol’ to make his film. Varun Rajendran filed a complaint with the South Indian Film Writer's Association, where he has registered Sengol in 2007.

The issue was taken to court and was sorted out amicably. Reportedly, as part of compromise, the makers agreed then that Varun will be credited with story via a special message. And there were unconfirmed reports that suggested that an amount was paid to Varun as compensation.

ARM’s yet another directorial venture Kaththi starring Vijay faced similar charges of plagiarism. Gopi Nainar (who directed Aramm later) had filed a case saying that he wrote the story of Kaththi and ARM had allegedly copied it without his knowledge. However, Chennai City Civil Court cleared the case in favour of AR Murugadoss, the final verdict saying there was no such evidence against the respondent.

Says Bhagyaraj, filmmaker and actor who is president of the Writers Association, “Yes, of late the association is receiving more complaints on story theft, which is not a good sign. It is really upsetting. You can do any number of films on aliens or sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.  You can get inspired from an idea. But inspiration is different from copying.  I did a script on cloning and waited to get it on screen. But, a year later a film titled Island by someone else had no similarity to my story as he has made it in his own angle. However, I gave up the idea of making that movie.”

Ahead of Jayam Ravi's recent release Comali, Krishnamoorthy, an associate of actor-director Parthiban, approached the Writers' Union accusing Comali director Pradeep Ranganathan of plagiarising his story. Apparently, Bhagyaraj, compared his script with that of Ranganathan's and concluded that the two films, in fact, had the same story. The issue got sorted out after its makers Ishari Ganesh, agreed to acknowledge him as the writer in the title card.

Suresh, an assistant director of ace filmmaker Bharathiraja claimed that Vijay Sethupathi-Trisha starrer 96 was plagiarised from his screenplay, which he had titled ‘92’ and is about the journey of two lovers from a small town. He claimed that he had narrated the story to 96 director Prem Kumar and actor Maruthu Pandian, whose assistance with the story was acknowledged in the film’s credits. However, Prem Kumar denied then that his breakout hit was plagiarised, and asserted that the allegation of intellectual theft has surfaced only because the movie was a box office winner.

Popular writer and trade analyst Sura opines, “Today almost all big movies are plagued with plagiarism issues. Indian filmmakers taking inspiration from Hollywood or Korean movies is not new. Even biggies in the industry rip off ideas from foreign films. Actually there’s a thin line between inspiration and plagiarism.

The copycat act has become instant with the advent of technology like social media and other online platforms. No sooner the teaser or trailer is out, if someone finds a slightest semblance to his script and he/she starts claiming that it has been copied.”

Ajith starrer Vivegam was stuck in a similar issue. Producer Ravinder Chandrasekar, who has bankrolled three films, claimed that Vivegam's story resembles his film, I-Na, which was meant for Ajith. Through a Facebook post, he stated that a close associate of Ajith to whom the story was narrated, had stolen it and nearly 60% of the content from  I-Na has been adapted onscreen.