Starting with an interview condemning the death penalty and images of an execution, the film’s intention of expressing its anti-capital punishment message is clear. Angela, a female documentarian, visits a prison to make a TV documentary on the issue of capital punishment. She had originally planned to interview a death row inmate, Narayanan, but learns that he has died recently from a fatal disease. Instead, she interviews two other inmates who were sentenced for the same crime: Virumaandi, sentenced to death, and Koththaala Thevar, who only received a life sentence. The same crime but two totally different testimonies. Thevar’s recollections of the events that led him to prison are full of gaps. It is only when Angela interviews Virumaandi that she realises the truth. Virumaandi was a victim of Thevar’s sinister plot that framed him for the vicious murder of 24 innocent people and the abduction and rape of his loving girlfriend. Angela is astonished that the death of 24 innocent people was Thevar’s treacherous scheme to gain ownership of Virumaandi’s water rich land. Using the unique ‘double narration’ technique, this multi-faceted film uses Angela’s flashbacks to recollect Virumaandi and Thevar’s individual accounts. The solemnity of the film’s theme is broken by periodic moments of comedy, dance and song. The brutal severing of arms, heads and legs, typical of the violence portrayed in India, is also a distinctive feature of this film. Due to its controversial theme and contents, the film has a received a great deal of public discussion and debate in India. Like the first traditional Bollywood film to be introduced to Korean audiences, Muthu, Virumaandi is also set in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. (Woo Seung-hyun)