organisation is more important than his life, orders Shiva to shoot him so Shiva can continue spying. Shiva shoots Adhi as the other terrorists enter the room. Shiva tells the terrorists Badri was killed by Adhi and that he killed Adhi. Shiva says Badri's death leaves him, as second-in-command, to take over the group. Adhi and Abbas are felicitated posthumously. Cast Kamal Haasan as Adhi Narayanan Arjun as Abbas Nassar as Badri Gouthami as Sumitra Geetha as Zeenath Nizhalgal Ravi as a criminal killed by Abbas K. Viswanath as Srinivasan Ajay Rathnam as the RPG shooter Subhalekha Sudhakar as Soori Sab John as Narasimham Arvind Krishna as Shiva / Dhanush Anusha as Mala Production Development In 1994, Govind Nihalani invited P. C. Sreeram and Kamal Haasan to a Bombay screening of his Hindi film Drohkaal. Both men liked the film; Haasan wanted to remake it in Tamil and Sreeram agreed. Haasan and Sreeram had discussions with Sab John about filming; it was decided Haasan would write the remake's screenplay. After completing the script, Haasan suggested three titles, two of which were Kuruthipunal () and Drohi (). The former title was met with objections because it was believed "the audience may not have a stomach for a morbid title". Sreeram, however, preferred Kuruthipunal, as it is also the title of a novel by Indira Parthasarathy, and he felt it had a connection to Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1957). It was decided to film simultaneously in Telugu with Drohi as the title. The film was produced by Haasan and his brother Chandrahasan under the banner Raaj Kamal Films International, photographed by Sreeram and edited by N. P. Sathish, while Haasan's then-wife Sarika was the sound recordist. Nirav Shah worked as an assistant cinematographer. The film has no songs and the score was composed by Mahesh. Casting and filming Besides producing the film and writing the screenplay, Haasan also portrayed the lead character Adhi Narayanan. He approached Arjun to portray Abbas; Arjun agreed to do the film even without hearing the narration until fiming began. Nassar, who portrayed the Naxalite leader Badri, said he had the freedom to interpret the character in his own way and that he "didn't really 'act' in the film. The context of every scene was so well established, that I did nothing more than maintain a stoic expression in most scenes. The fact that my character was