Sukumara Kurup won’t be glorified or shown as a good person in our film: Dulquer Salmaan

Dulquer Salmaan has a busy couple of years ahead of him with several promising projects in the pipeline. One of the most exciting among them is Sukumara Kurup, a movie based on the real life of the state’s most wanted criminal. The project was announced in June this year with an intriguing first look poster. The announcement came in as a huge surprise for the Malayali audience.

Srinath Rajendran, noted for his films like Second Show and Koothara will be directing this upcoming movie. Ever since the project was announced there have been talks about how the makers are going to present a notorious criminal like Sukumara Kurup on screen. Many have shown their dissent in glorifying a criminal’s life.

In a recent interview to TNM, Dulquer was asked whether he has any apprehensions about playing such a charcater. He is quoted saying,

“It’s too early to talk about that right now. The film will go on the floors sometime next year. We’re still fleshing things out. I don’t think we’re going to glorify him or say that he did something right or wrong. We’ll tell it in a stylized way for sure but we won’t glorify him or make him seem like a good man.”

Sukumara Kurup is an accused in the murder of Chacko in the year 1984. Chacko was strangled to death and his body was burnt inside a car. Sukumara Kurup, who was 38 then, allegedly committed the crime to fake his own death and claim an insurance amount of Rs 8 lakhs by killing Chacko who bore a resemblance with him. He is supposed to have fled abroad after the incident and has been absconding for over thirty years now. The Chacko murder case is one of the long standing cases in the judicial history of Kerala.

Earlier, director Srinath Rajendran had informed that the film is not a fictional story. It will discuss in depth about the life of Sukumara Kurup. Eventhough there have been movies in the past based on his life, this upcoming movie will be an entirely different one. They are trying to bring several unexplored aspects of his life on screen. It will be a story from a different perspective of his life, that most of us are unaware of.

The movie is scripted jointly by Jithin K Jose and Jishnu Sreekumar. The team have been doing research works for a long time. They are currently on the lookout for the rest of the cast and the locations.