As ironic as it sounds, 16 Vayathinile’s Telugu dubbed release is slated to happen on an OTT platform soon despite having its own Telugu version Padaharella Vayasu, as Klapboardpost.com had stated before. The film, titled Nee Kosam Neereekshana, stars Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Sridevi and was helmed by Bharathi Raja. It had won numerous awards and impressed audiences upon its release in 1977. A year later, the film was remade in Telugu as Padaharella Vayasu by Raghavendra Rao, starring Sridevi, Mohan Babu and Chandra Mohan.
Four decades later, Bama Rajkannu, daughter of Tamil version producer, SA Rajkannu is bringing to the Telugu film viewers a digitally restored and dubbed version of 16 Vayathinile, titled as Neekosam Neereekshana. The production house, Supreme Almighty Creations is planning to release it exclusively online and then it will be dubbed in 4 more languages.
Why should one watch the film when the other Telugu and Tamil versions are already available to the public? Producer Bama Rajkannu had a rather weird answer to say.
“I want to preset the classic my Dad produced 40 years back in Tamil to the Telugu audience. I have edited 30 minutes of the film matching the sensibilities of Telugu audience and double censored it. Neekosam Neereekshana has come out like a straight movie starring Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Sridevi and the climax differs from the Telugu remake, Padaharella Vayasu. New music director, KK has composed 5 new songs for the film and they are available on Aditya Music’s YouTube channel. However, we have retained the re-recording tracks (background score) of Ilaiyaraaja garu,” she said.
The financing wasn’t easy for the film. “Rajinikanth garu helped me financially since the expenses became triple that of a regular dubbing film. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, I had to cancel the preview. I have arranged to screen the film privately for Rajinikanth garu and Kamal Haasan garu. Lab technicians had a tough time cleaning, scanning, enhancing the colours and restoring frame by frame into Cinemascope. Three audiographers worked on the original by recreating and mixing sound effects to match 5.1 quality. The voice for both the hero and villain was given by the same dubbing artist, but you won’t be able to make out the difference. I had plans to release the film in 1,000 theatres, but we are considering a direct online release given the COVID-19 scenario,” she remarked.
