From Mahabharata to The Godfather, filmmakers have repeatedly drawn on these worlds to shape stories of power, loyalty, and fate. This piece looks at how these archetypes are reimagined in Indian cinema, less as adaptations, more as echoes—through three films from the South.

At the onset, there is something indomitable about Michael Anjootti (Mammootty). In that large, sprawling mansion, teeming with kith and kin, each carrying their own fractures and fault lines, his presence alone seems to impose a fragile order. He is less a man and more an atmosphere. Even his shadow has weight; it steadies the chaos, like a quiet, unspoken law. And he knows them all, the loyalists, the opportunists, the rotten apples, and yet he moves among them with measured restraint, keeping the tensions from erupting, allowing them to simmer just below the surface where they can still be controlled.

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In Bheeshma Parvam (2023), directed by Amal Neerad, the invocation of Bheeshma Pitamaha is anything but subtle; on the contrary, it is fully embodied in Michaelappan. Like Bheeshma, he is bound by vows that are both his strength and his undoing. There is an unwavering devotion to duty, a moral rigidity that persists even as he operates within morally ambiguous terrain. His celibacy is not merely personal but symbolic, a renunciation that cements his role as patriarch rather than participant. His loyalty is absolute, often to a fault, and his sense of righteousness is tinged with tragedy.

Most strikingly, like his mythological counterpart, Michael appears to possess an almost eerie control over his own fate, not in a literal sense, but in the way he dictates the terms of his existence within this world. His life is governed by an internal code so rigid that it begins to resemble destiny itself. And therein lies the quiet tragedy: a man who holds everything together, yet belongs nowhere within it. But Neerad also cinematically frames him in the image of Don Vito Corleone, drawing on the uncanny overlap between Bhishma and the Godfather archetype. Like his counterpart in The Godfather, Michael Appan operates through a calibrated balance of restraint and authority. Violence is never his first language, but it is never off the table either. He does not flinch from it; he simply doesn’t squander it.

What defines him, much like Vito Corleone, is his preference for negotiation over impulsiveness, for strategy over spectacle. Power, for Michael, lies in timing, in knowing when to speak softly and when to let silence carry the threat. There is an old-world gravitas to this approach, a belief in order even within illegality, in hierarchy even within chaos. And yet, this alignment deepens the tragedy. Because like both Bhishma and Vito Corleone, Michael is ultimately a man trapped by the very system he sustains, a patriarch whose strength lies in holding the family together, even as that very role ensures he can never truly step outside it.

While in Thalapathi (1991), Mani Ratnam pivots his narrative around the moral and emotional complexity of Mahabharata’s Karna, transplanting him into an urban underworld without diluting the essence of the myth. His Karna, aka Surya, is forged through abandonment and alienation, a man shaped as much by society’s rejection as by his own innate sense of justice. The familiar markers remain intact: his fierce loyalty to Duryodhana, his instinct to protect the marginalized, his almost self-destructive generosity, and the quiet, simmering wound of illegitimacy.

When Surya (Rajinikanth) finds kinship in Deva (Mammootty), the film mirrors Karna’s bond with Duryodhana, not merely as friendship, but as a moment of existential validation. Deva doesn’t just offer Surya power; he offers him dignity. And in doing so, he anchors Surya’s moral compass, even if it pulls him towards adharma. Loyalty, here, becomes both virtue and trap, which has always been the defining paradox of Karna.

But Ratnam softens the harsher edges of the epic. By reconfiguring Kunti’s abandonment as a consequence of sexual violence rather than divine intervention, he lends her choice a tragic inevitability, making reconciliation emotionally accessible rather than ethically fraught. This recalibration allows the narrative to move towards closure without the weight of moral judgement.

And crucially, unlike the Mahabharata, Surya is not consumed by resentment. His relationship with Arjuna is stripped of that deep-seated rivalry; the revelation of brotherhood dissolves hostility almost instantly. What Ratnam offers, then, is not just an adaptation but a negotiation, a version of Karna where the tragedy is tempered, where the possibility of emotional resolution, however fleeting, is allowed to exist.

Meanwhile, Joshiy’s Naduvazhikal (1989) is a loose transposition of The Godfather into the socio-political fabric of Kerala, borrowing its skeletal arc while reshaping its emotional priorities. When his father (Madhu), who is the head of a shadowy business empire, gets arrested, Arjun (Mohanlal) is compelled to step into a role that he neither sought nor fully understands. It is a path that clearly echoes that of Michael Corleone: a reluctant heir drawn into the vortex of power, gradually assuming control.

But then, while The Godfather charts the chilling descent of Michael Corleone into calculated ruthlessness, Naaduvazhikal resists that moral darkening. That’s why Arjun’s arc is less about becoming ruthless and more about endurance—circumstance, legacy, and threat. He hovers in a grey zone, caught between the weight of his father’s past and the urgency of protecting his own family. The film is less interested in interrogating the ethical corrosion that accompanies power and more invested in framing Arjun as a man pushed to the edge, but never quite crossing over.

This tonal shift is crucial. Therefore, Arjun is not allowed the moral ambiguity or decay that defines Michael Corleone. Instead, he remains tethered to a sense of righteousness, even within a corrupt system. And that ending reflects this choice: instead of critiquing the system or exploring the cycle of power, the story turns personal, a son’s revenge. Finally, it is not about changing the world that wronged him, but about settling scores within it.

© Mathrubhumi English