A look at Tamil Burmese repatriates

A former assistant to director AR Murugadoss, Rajkumar is ecstatic about getting to make his directorial debut in Tamil cinema under his mentor's production. "Every assistant who has worked and will be working in the future with AR Murugadoss is lucky. It's not just the work experience, he also takes extra care to make sure that our career goes in the right path," says Rajkumar, who has shot the film in Chennai and Burma. 

Talking about Rangoon, the director says the movie is "about the survival of a youngster inside a world where he belongs." The story is based around Gautham Karthik, who plays Venkat, a Tamil Burmese repatriate. But, the director also makes it a point to stress that while "everyone thinks the film will be about Burmese descendants in Chennai, that's just the backdrop in which the story happens." He adds, "The film will open people's eyes to a part of our world that hasn't really been looked at before."

The director says that he has spent a considerable amount of time on research for the film. "But we've also made sure that it doesn't look like a documentary. For commercial purposes, we've covered the backstory in a different format which has come out really well." Rajkumar also praises Gautham Karthik for the hard work that he has put in for this film. "He plays a goldsmith, and he had to partially train for it, too. His transformation was quite a challenge. He had to work on his dialect, body language, accent, and mannerisms. We shot in real locations and he wasn't used to such scenarios. But he learnt to get used to the lifestyle. He also attended workshops for this film."

Sana Makbul is making her Tamil debut with Rangoon. Well known Malayalam actor Siddique, too, is making his foray into Tamil cinema with this film. "Siddique plays a sweet role as a mentor to Gautham. His role has a lot of positive appeal. The film also has a good number of upcoming and first-time actors as supporting cast members," says Rajkumar. With music by RH Vikram and background score by Vishal Chandrasekhar, the audio was released yesterday.