Some works leave an indelible mark on a filmmaker’s entire career, overshadowing everything else he does later in his career. For Sangeeth Sivan, who died on Wednesday at a private hospital in Mumbai at the age of 65, that work came much earlier in his career.

Warrior (1992), his second film, would establish his name as one of the most watchable films in Malayalam cinema.

Despite doing several films in Malayalam and achieving reasonable commercial success with several masala films in Bollywood in the 2000s, he could never reach those heights again. Warrior achieved.

However, like many of his other works, liberally influenced by a Hollywood film (The Golden Child), the film written by Sasidharan Arattuvazhy had some original humor, which was accentuated on screen by the memorable performances of Jagathy Sreekumar and Mohanlal.

Three decades after its release, his reactions to the film are still part of everyday conversation in Kerala. Sangeet also brought AR Rahman, whose first music was Roza The film was yet to be released making for a hugely successful album.

early start

Son of photographer and filmmaker Sivan (who shot stills for Chemmin) and Chandramani, cinema has always been a part of Sangeet’s life.

After starting his career in documentaries with the assistance of his father, he was inspired by his younger brother, filmmaker and cinematographer Santosh Sivan, to move into feature films.

However his first stint in Bollywood was as an executive producer in the Aamir Khan starrer ash (1989), he chose Malayalam for his first directorial debut array (1990), a thriller starring Raghuvaran and Urvashi, largely inspired by lethal Weapon,

fresh from the success of Warrior In 1992 he also created Father, He again collaborated with Mohanlal gandharvam (1993), which may have been largely forgotten, but is still remembered for the humor surrounding the hero’s attempts to stage his own version. Shakuntalam,

his film boy (1993) won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Children’s Film. decision (1995), her third film with Mohanlal, was heavily inspired by the Harrison Ford-starrer fugitiveBut it was nevertheless praised as a well-adapted thriller.

after the forgettable snehapoorvam anna (2000), Sangeeth gradually moved away from the Malayalam industry.

bollywood glow

By this time, she had made her presence felt in Bollywood with the Sunny Deol-starrer emphasis (nineteen ninety eight). He later said that it was the technological advancements made in Bollywood with the help of big budgets that inspired him to make this change.

With the change, the tone of his films changed from subtle to intense, notable in films like You have stolen it, we are so cool And apna dream paisa paisaSome of which were commercially successful.

He will return to Malayalam to write and produce idiots in 2012 and I in 2017, but these were unsuccessful. He also marked his presence in the OTT space with the psychological thriller Confusion (2019). A few days before his demise, he was busy with the post-production work of his next Hindi directorial Kapkapiremake of malayalam movie romancham,