Kattukuthira 1990

Kochuraman V K Sreeraman is the village toddy collector, belonging to the Ezhava caste, with a well-built body and a strong personality. He leads a simple and happy life with his wife and son, Kochuvava. Manorama “Thampuratti” is the daughter of a feudal lord in the village, a member of the ruling Kshatriya family, who falls for Kochuraman and attempts to seduce him, ignoring the vast caste gap between them. The affair is discovered by the feudal lord, who murders Kochuraman. His chopped-off body is displayed for all the village to see while Manorama Thampuratti is paralysed after being kicked by the Thampuran during the incident. Kochuvava witnesses his father’s body lying in the pool of blood under a coconut tree and, despite his young age, swears revenge upon his father’s murderers.

Kochuvava Thilakan grows up into a ruthless abkari, amassing wealth through a blend of legal and illegal schemes, climbing the social ladder as times change. He ends up buying everything in the village, including the kovilakam, whose current generation sold the land as they migrated to urban life. For Kochuvava, nothing is more important than money and revenge in his life, and even his wife and son become secondary when it comes to that. In his quest for vengeance, he bullies anyone and anything that dares to stand up to him. Despite lacking formal education amid shifting times, he runs his empire with wit and ruthless efficiency. He plans to exact his ultimate vengeance by starting an illicit Arrack business in the kovilakam, a move meant to swell his profits and drive out the last residents of the kovilakam—Manorama and a young girl who live there with their property overseer Raman Nair [Babu Namboothiri]. Following this, he plans to dig a pond where the kovilakam stands today. For Kochuvava, drinking a handful of water from that pond will mark the completion of his vengeance.

However, this masterful, long-standing plan is strongly challenged by his spoilt, immature son, Mohan [Vineeth Radhakrnan], who also happens to be in love with the young and equally naive girl who is the titular Kochuthampuratti of the kovilakam. As Kochuvava weighs the implications of his schemes amid the mediation of friends and well-wishers, the immature couple decides to live together and come to stay with him. He initially refuses to let them stay and threatens to make life impossible for them, even if they must retreat to the old ruined palace.

The couple eventually move in, and, after a tense period, they go ahead with their plan and hang themselves in the palace. Raman Nair, the overseer of the feudal family, witnesses the hanging bodies. Kochuvava’s own past words about the inevitability of starting Arrack manufacturing in the upper-caste home surface in Raman Nair’s mind, and he realises the terrifying power of Kochuvava’s will as he sees his son and the young aristocrat dead. Unable to endure the caste humiliation any longer, Raman Nair burns down the palace with Manorama alive inside and goes to inform Kochuvava and the rest of the village.

The film closes on a bitter note for Kochuvava, as he finally bows his head for the first time in his life to love and fire. The punishment—or lack thereof—for Raman Nair remains unclear, and it is left to the viewer to wonder whether this upheaval alters Kochuvava’s plan to dig the pond where the palace once stood.