In my review of Mersal, I pointed out that the underlying plot of the film seemed to have some similarities with Kamal Haasan-Singeetham Srinivasa Rao film Apoorva Sagodarargal. Others pointed out how Mersal seemed to have similarities with Dhoom 3, which in turn had similarities with the Christopher Nolan movie The Prestige.
Both films had an honest-upright-defender of justice father who is brutally killed by the villains. Both films had brothers – nearly identical twins – who grow up separated from each other. One of the brothers learns the secret of their father’s death, and swears revenge. He sets about killing the men who killed his father. However, suspicion falls on the other brother. The rest of the film is about how the two brothers unite, and jointly exact revenge and fulfill their destiny.
Apart from the plot, there are other similarities. While Apu of Apoorva Sagodarargal, played by a “not what you think” dwarf Kamal Haasan, who worked in a circus and had access to animals and complicated Rube Goldberg killing machines, Vetri of Mersal, played by Vijay, is a magician and builds his own killing machines.
A circus clown and a magician are both entertainers – one putting on a mask to elicit laughs, the other masking sleight of hands to create illusions. However, both Apu and Vetri build elaborate “tricks” to hide themselves from their target’s eyes. And build fancy contraptions to kill them as well.
Contrast this to a series of “bow” like devices in Mersal which launched glass bottles at the villain SJ Suryah, in the climax.
A famous line from Apoorva Sagodarargal, said by the midget Apu, goes “Sethupathykku porandhadhu retta. Adhula onnu kutta” – a fine wordplay in Tamil – “Sethupathy children are twins. One’s a dwarf.” Not exactly identical twins – one’s “smaller” than the other. Here, in Mersal, not-exactly twins – Maaran and Vetri, with Vetri the younger (smaller) of the two. However, it is the “smaller” twin in both films who seeks revenge, and has to educate the other.
Raja, of Apoorva Sagodarargal, was a mechanic who made the car’s heart kept on ticking. Maaran of Mersal, is a doctor who really does keep your heart ticking. Apart from the obvious differences, both have hearts of gold, and very slick dance moves.
Both sons are the chip-of-the-old-block of the father – Thalapathy of Mersal, and Sethupathy of Apoorva Sagodarargal. A honest man, a defender of law and order, a keeper of the peace, a man who will stand up for his fellow humans, and question injustice. Both fathers are maimed and killed brutally while trying to protect their respective children.
Similarities however, does not mean that one film is a copy of the other. After all, Apoorva Sagodarargal, perhaps one of the best Tamil films made, was itself partly inspired by the legendary The Circus a film by Charlie Chaplin. What matters is that Mersal took the plot of the film, and made it its own. There are other enough original elements – such as the hospital malpractices and corrupt doctors (a theme that Vijaykanth, Vijay, and many other “heroes” of Tamil cinema have dabbled in before), and that a Vijay film is a blockbuster, mass, action-drama-musical masala film.
However, Apoorva Sagodarargal took the best elements of a masala film, and mixed it up in great ways to bring us a film that remains a classic, 28 years after it first came out.
