Renowned Malayalam screenwriter John Edathattil better known as Sab John, began writing this film after an earlier film about the Sri Lankan Civil War he was involved in, was dropped.
Gunaa was said to be a loose remake of the 1989 Spanish film, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. In the latter film, an unbalanced former mental patient takes a porn star prisoner in the hopes of marrying her.The dialogues were written by Balakumaran. It was the second film he worked on after Nayakan (1987).The film was originally titled Mathikettan Solai, but was later changed to Gunaa due to commercial reasons as the title Mathikettan Solai was believed to be negatively impact the movie.Newcomer Roshini was selected as the female lead Abhirami, and Gunaa was the only film she ever acted in. She's now married and settled in the US.Roshini's voice was dubbed by actress Saritha.Gunaa was the tenth directorial of Santhana Bharathi. His last film before Gunaa was Kavalukku Kettikaran, and his next film after Gunaa was Chinna Mappillai, both starring Prabhu.Santhana Bharathi later revealed in an interview that Kamal was on diet and lost 10 Kgs for the character.On the insistence of Kamal Haasan, a mannequin very similar to the actor's looks and physique, was designed and used in the film's climax.The cave where Guna hides Roshini aka Abirami is situated in between three naturally arranged imposing boulders in Kodaikanal.Due to the three boulders, when fog passes through the cave, rises and comes out of the chimney-like opening, it appears as though a devil is cooking. For this reason, it was called Devils' Kitchen.Since the movie's release this almost untrespassed location, gathered popularity and got rechristened as Guna Cave, a tourist attraction in Kodaikanal.The song 'Kanmani Anbodu' was entirely shot inside the Devils' Kitchen.Sathy, who worked as production controller for the film, later revealed that the cave that they shot in was easily 500 to 600 feet deep.Shooting happened for about 45 days inside the cave in a continuous single schedule.It was the team of Gunaa, who took the efforts to make stair cases all the way to the bottom of the cave.Ropes were attached to pulleys and all the production equipment were lowered in and out of the 500 feet cave.'The steady camera used to attract fungal growth and didn't work every time it was taken to the bottom of the cave. We had a tough time cleaning and using it,' production assistant Sathy had revealed.According to Sathy, the film technicians had to be payed thrice the actual salary as they had to start at 3:30 am from the hotel in order to reach the location by 6:30 am.The technicians, who had to go down the cave by rope to set up the equipment, were all paid five times the salary for the day.On May 21 1991, around 50 press reporters were taken to the location for a press meet. But unfortunately, they got stranded following the news of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.'There was no transportation continuously for two to three days . We provided the reporters accommodation during the period near to the site and sent them back to Chennai safely,' Sathy had revealed.Kamal included some audio recording sessions with music director Ilayaraja in the audio cassetes, which was a first for the Tamil film industry.Gunaa faced heavy competition from another Diwali release, Thalapathi, and ended up as an average grosser at the box office, despite the unanimously positive reviews from the press.Kamal had later revealed that tracking shots in the early portions of the film were inspired from films directed by Max Ophüls, a German filmmaker.The scene, when Gunaa fights the cops and his gun goes off, was meant to be a tribute to Kamal's favourite actor Dilip Kumar's Ganga Jumna.Malayalam director Sathyan Anthikkad said that female character Kanmani from his directorial Rasathanthram (2006) was inspired from the song 'Kanmani Anbodu'.The film gets referenced in the blockbuster Malayalam hit, Premam, where Shambu sings the song 'Kanmani Anbodu Kadhalan' several times.Gunaa was shot by acclaimed Malayalam cinematographer, Venu.Kamal lost the National Film Award for best actor for the year to Mithun Chakraborty for the Bengali film, Tahader Katha.Here are a few rare posters and paper ads from the film.