With just a day left for the release of Mohan G's Draupathi 2, the film landed in censorship-related legal trouble, which got resolved after the Madras High Court refused to intervene in the case. As per a report by Daily Thanthi, a person named Mahamuni from Melur in the Madurai district, in a petition filed before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, stated the following:
"The film unit has claimed that the movie Draupathi 2 has been made based on the life history of King Veeravallala Devan, who ruled in the 14th century with Tiruvannamalai as his capital. There are several historical records, including inscriptions and copper plate grants, which establish that Veeravallala Devan belonged to the Kallar community.
However, in Draupathi 2, director Mohan has portrayed Veeravallala Devan as belonging to the Vanniyar community. Further, in the posters of the film, the name Veeravallala Devan has been mentioned only as Veeravallalan, which is intentional and done with ulterior motives. The Censor Board has hastily granted a U/A certificate to this film. Despite submitting a representation seeking withdrawal of this certificate, no action has been taken."
Based on these grounds, the petitioner sought directions to order a re-examination of the film by the Censor Board and to impose an interim ban on the release of Draupathi 2 until the historical inaccuracies in the film are corrected.
However, when the case came up for hearing before Justice Vijayakumar of the Madras High Court, it observed that since the Censor Board had already granted certification, the court could not interfere. Granting liberty to file a public interest litigation in connection with the issue, the judge disposed of the case with this order.
Draupathi 2 stars Richard Rishi, Rakshana Induchoodan, Natty Nataraj and Chirag Jani in lead roles. The film is backed by Sola Shakkaravarthi under the Netaji Productions banner along with GM Film Corporation. The ensemble cast also includes Vela Ramamoorthy, Dinesh Lamba, Ganesh Gourang, Y Gee Mahendran, Barani, Deviyani Sharma, Divi, Saravanan Subbiah and Jayavel, among others.
Set against the backdrop of the Hoysala Kingdom under the rule of Veera Vallala III, the film explores the resistance of the Kadavarayas, the internal conflicts within the kingdom, and the turbulence caused by the Mughal invasion.
On the technical front, Draupathi 2 has music composed by Ghibran, cinematography by Philip R Sundar, editing by Devaraj, action choreography by Action Santosh, and art direction by Kamalnathan. Initially planned for a late January release, the film was brought forward to hit theatres for Pongal. However, it has now been rescheduled for January 23.
