CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Mankatha

2011 Tamil film directed by Venkat Prabhu

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ3471920
Source-derived summary

Mankatha (; transl. Gambling) also known as Mangaatha, is a 2011 Indian Tamil-language crime action film written and directed by Venkat Prabhu and produced by Dayanidhi Azhagiri's Cloud Nine Movies. The film stars an ensemble cast of Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Lakshmi Rai, Anjali, Andrea Jeremiah, Ashwin Kakumanu, Vaibhav Reddy, Premji Amaren, Mahat Raghavendra, Jayaprakash, Aravind Akash and Subbu Panchu. It is Ajith's 50th film as a lead actor and the third and penultimate film of the production studio. The film follows Vinayak, a corrupt ACP in Mumbai, who joins a gang of four to plan a heist of cricket betting money in 2011 Indian Premier League.

The film had the tentative title of Thala 50, which was later officially announced in August 2010 under the initial official title Mangaatha, however, it underwent a change to Mankatha due to numerology reasons. Principal photography commenced in October 2010. It was shot for the most part in Chennai, the Dharavi slum in Mumbai and Bangkok and wrapped by June 2011. Following speculations regarding the film's release, Sun Pictures under Kalanithi Maran acquired the theatrical rights and distributed the film via Radhika's Radaan Mediaworks. The film has music composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, cinematography handled by Sakthi Saravanan and editing by Praveen K. L. and N. B. Srikanth.

Mankatha released worldwide on 31 August 2011 in theatres to critical acclaim and became the second biggest opening Tamil film after Enthiran at the time of release.

Editorial summary

“Mankatha” enters the record as 2011 Tamil film directed by Venkat Prabhu. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mankatha, Tamil and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2011-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Mankatha, Tamil and film.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Mankatha” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mankatha, Tamil and film provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3471920. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011 and 2010.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mankatha”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mankatha primary sources, Mankatha archive and Mankatha research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mankatha”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Mankatha” 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.