Malayankunju, among the toughest films for Fahadh Faasil, gets OTT release date

Today is Malayalam star Fahadh Faasil's birthday. And Amazon Prime Video chose the day to announce the digital premerie of his film Malayankunju, which according to the actor, "is one of the toughest films that I have shot so far."

It will stream on Prime Video from August 11 --- less than a month after its theatrical release on July 22.

The film, which is a survival thriller, got good reviews from the critics and is also deemed a hit, continuing Fahad Faasil's rich vein of success at the box-office across languages. His previous releases were smashing hits across the country, though in Telugu and Tamil --- Pushpa and Vikram. His last Malayalam movie, Malik, also got him good name and had a reasonable run in the theatres.

But before that he had a string of successes with three movies that were directly premiered on OTT platforms --- C U Soon, Irul and Joji.

Rahman's comeback to Malayalam industry

Malayankunju also marks the return of ace music director AR Rahman to Malayalam movie industry. His previous and only Malayalam film was Yodha (starring Mohanlal) in 1992. So the Grammy-Oscar winner is making a comeback to Mollywood in 30 years. Incidentally, Rahman had worked as a musician (under other music directors) for many Malayalam movies before he broke out on his own. His late dad R K Shekhar was a music director in his own right for 23 Malayalam movies in the late 60s and 70s.

Malayankunju is directed by Sajimon Prabhakar, and scripted by filmmaker Mahesh Narayanan. It is the story of survival of a man who gets trapped in a landslide. It is the story of Anikuttan, played by Fahadh, who is a testy electronics technician. His patience and equipoise is tested by his neighbour’s newborn baby as it invokes some uncomfortable memories from his past. As it happens, the two are trapped under the rubble following a landslide. Do they survive?

It was tough for Fahadh Faasil

The film gave the lead actor some tough moments, and he was even injured during the film's shoot. Fahadh Faasil said: "The second half of the film is set 40 feet underground, so we had to create a set where we had to crouch and crawl. Malayalam cinema hasn’t seen a film like this in recent times and I’m glad that the audiences and critics have appreciated our efforts."

Director Sajimon Prabhakar said: "The primary challenge for the crew was to create a set that would emulate subterranean space and the team worked day and night to create a 40-foot set in a way that only allowed space for one person to move around, combined with an actual location to make it look seamless. Despite the tough circumstances, Fahadh gave a wonderful performance which has been applauded by cinephiles."

This is Fahadh's fourth release on Prime Video in recent times. The previous ones were CU Soon, Joji and Malik.

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