to end." He noted that although there were anachronisms such as telephone and telegraph wires visible, "these defects pale into insignificance before the gloss and satisfying impact of the film as a whole on the minds of cinegoers." Ramachandran lauded Ganesan's performance, his tandava, the performances of Savitri, Nagarajan and the other supporting actors, Sundarambal's singing, K. S. Prasad's cinematography and Ganga's art direction. Re-release In mid-2012, legal issues arose when attempts were made to digitally re-release the film. G. Vijaya of Vijaya Pictures filed a lawsuit against Gemini Colour Laboratory and Sri Vijayalakshmi Pictures for attempting to re-release the film without her company's permission. In December 1975, Sri Vijayalakshmi Pictures transferred the film rights to Movie Film Circuit; MFC transferred them to Vijaya Pictures on 18 May 1976. Vijaya Pictures approached Gemini to digitise the film for re-release, but Sri Vijayalakshmi Pictures asked laboratory officials not to release the film without their consent. Sri Vijayalakshmi Pictures disputed Vijaya's claim by running an advertisement in a Tamil newspaper on 18 May 2012 saying that it owned the film's rights, and anyone who wanted to exhibit it in a digital format should only do so with their permission. The judge who presided over the case ordered that the status quo be maintained by both parties. Encouraged by the success of the re-release of Karnan (1964), C. N. Paramasivam (Nagarajan's son and the head of Sri Vijayalakshmi Pictures) found film negatives of Thiruvilayadal in a Gemini Films storage facility. Paramasivam restored the film and re-released it in CinemaScope in September 2012. The digitised version premiered at the Woodlands Theater in Royapettah, Chennai. It received public acclaim and became a commercial success. Producer Ramkumar (Ganesan's son) said about the digitised version, "It was like watching a new film". Legacy and influence Thiruvilaiyadal has attained cult status in Tamil cinema. Along with Karnan, it was responsible for a resurgence in devotional and mythological cinema, since it was released at a time when Tamil cinema primarily made social films. Film critic Baradwaj Rangan called Thiruvilaiyadal "the best" Tamil film epic released during the 1960s. Nagarajan and Ganesan collaborated on several more films in the genre, including Saraswathi Sabatham (1966), Thiruvarutchelvar (1967), Kandhan Karunai (1967) and Thirumal Perumai (1968). The film was a milestone of Nagesh's career, and the character of Dharumi is cited as one of his finest roles. In July 2007, when S. R.