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Moondru Mugam

1982 Tamil film directed by A. Jagannathan

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ15301971 ↗
Source-derived summary

Moondru Mugam (transl. Three Faces) is a 1982 Indian Tamil-language action film directed by A. Jagannathan. The film stars Rajinikanth in three distinct roles. It was released on 1 October 1982 and became a major success, running for over 200 days in theatres. Rajinikanth won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize for Best Actor. The film was remade in Kannada as Gedda Maga (1983), in Telugu as Mugguru Monagallu (1983), and in Hindi as John Jani Janardhan (1984) with Rajinikanth reprising his roles.

Plot

Arun, the son of wealthy businessman Ramanathan, returns to India after spending 10 years in the United States – but as a saint. Shocked by his transformation, Ramanathan enlists Rekha, a press reporter, to help change him back to his former self. Rekha first arranges an interview, which Arun deliberately disrupts. Undeterred, she devises another plan under the pretense of taking him to a temple.

On the way, Rekha fakes a car breakdown.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Moondru Mugam” is 1982 Tamil film directed by A. Jagannathan. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Moondru, Mugam and Tamil, not as a finished interpretation.

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—1982, 1983, 1984—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1982-10-01. For this dossier, Moondru, Mugam and Tamil is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1982 Tamil film directed by A. Jagannathan” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15301971. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982, 1983 and 1984.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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 “Moondru Mugam”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Moondru Mugam primary sources, Moondru Mugam archive and Moondru 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 “Moondru Mugam”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Moondru Mugam” 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.