There are many films in INDIA which are remade (or copied without copyrights) from Hollywood films. But we have not heard about the vice versa. My topic is focusing on "Vice-versa". Let me take the script and characters played in "Kuruthipunal" and "The Departed".
Kuruthipunal deals with the story of the police officers fighting against terrorism. "The Departed" deals with the story of the police officers fighting against "Mafia".
Kuruthipunal starts with the two police officers (Kamalhassan as Adhi Narayanan and Arjun as Abbas) training two police officer (Anand and Shiva) to join in terror group naming the operation as "Operation Dhanush". Work of the officers joined terror group is to send information about the plan of them and head of the terrorist named "Badri"(played by Nassar).While Anand is sending information to Adhi and Abbas ,he is caught by terrorists and he kills himself by taking "Cyanide". Terrorists come to know there is one more snooper from police is in their gang.
Meanwhile Adhi Narayanan catches Badri (Head of Terrorist) when he tries to plant a bomb in railway station. Narasimham is a police officer under Adhi works for Badri to snoop the police. Srinivasan head of Adhi/Abbas is also works for terrorist group. With twists in the story, Badri escapes from Jail and kills Abbas and threatens Adhi he will kill his wife and son if he is not telling about "Operation Dhanush". In climax, Badri comes know Shiva is part of operation Dhanush and Adhi kills Badri and askingShiva to kill him, so that Shiva can take up position of Badri and find the root of terrorist group. Finally Shiva kills Badri and telling terrorists that he killed Adhi because Adhi killed Badri to become leader of terrorist
"The Departed" starts with the Frank Costella (Nicholson) lead of Mafia training Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) to join the police. In other scene, Billy Costigian (Leonardo Dicaprio) is asked by two police officers Oliver Queenan (Sheen) and Sean Dignam(Wahlberg) to join Mafia gang as undercover agent. Colin joins the police and Billy joins the Mafia. After some twists, Frank comes to know some undercover-agent is in his gang and Oliver comes to know some one from mafia is in his team. In one stage,Oliver is killed by Mafia and Frank is killed by Colin. Billy finally finds Colin is trained by Frank and asking him to come to a private place with Billy's identification file in police that proves Billy is a police. When Colin comes there, Billy catches him and takes him to police, but Billy is killed by another police officer Barrigan (Dale) who is also part of Frank team. Colin kills the police officer Barrigan to hide his identity that he was part of Frank team. In climax, Colin is killed by Sean when he comes to know Colinwas part of Frank team.
Let me take the similarity between these two films.
Adhi and Abbas trains Anand and Shiva to join the terrorist group. Oliver and Sean trains Billy to join the Mafia.
Narasimham and Srinivasan is part of terror group works in police. Colin and Barrigan is part of Mafia gang works in police. Both the story revolves around the police officers snooping the anti-government forces (Terrorist group and Mafia gang).
Kuruthipunal is the official entry into 68th Academy Awards (Oscars) under "Best Foreign Language Film" in 1995."The Departed" is the remake of 2002 "Infernal Affairs" Honk-Kong film. I think since Kuruthipunal is the official entry from India to Oscars, this might be the place where director or writer inspired to take similar type of movie. Anyway if people watch this movie and finds the similarity of story line with Kuruthipunal, then we can say even Hollywood is inspired by Kollywood.
Madan Kumar
madankumar.baskaran@gmail.com