Sankarlal
1981 film directed by T. N. Balu, N. K. Vishwanathan
Sankarlal is a 1981 Indian Tamil-language action film, written, directed and produced by T. N. Balu. It stars Kamal Haasan in dual lead roles as father and son. Balu died half-way during production, and the film was eventually completed with N. K. Viswanathan as director. The film was simultaneously shot in Telugu-language as Andagaadu (transl. Handsome) with Allu Rama Lingaiah and Rao Gopal Rao.
Plot
The film begins with an ordinary man Dharmalingam vacationing in Ooty with his family where he is framed for murder by a criminal named Chelladurai. Dharmalingam is jailed while his wife, son Mohan and daughter Seetha all end up separated from each other. After several years, the vengeful Dharmalingam returns to confront Chelladurai as the secretive Sankarlal and also desperately is on the lookout for his lost family. Chelladurai has meanwhile kidnapped a girl named Hema for ransom and Mohan is deputed by Hema's father to rescue her. This results in Dharmalingam and Mohan locking horns in their fight against their common enemy Chelladurai.
Cast
Tamil version
Suruli Rajan as Kanthasamy Pillai
S. A. Ashokan as Natarajan (Guest appearance)
Production
Balu died half-way during production, and the film was eventually completed with Viswanathan as director.
“Sankarlal” enters the record as 1981 film directed by T. N. Balu, N. K. Vishwanathan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sankarlal, film and directed can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7418678. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sankarlal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.