The story revolves around a Tamil pop singer Inderjeet based in Bangalore who has a large female following. The movie opens with the death of a back-up dancer, Sandhya, in Inderjeet's group. Although the police suspect Inderjeet, they have no evidence linking him to the crime. Meanwhile, Sandhya's sister Divya arrives at her aunt Dr. Prabhavathy's house to find out the truth about Sandhya's death. She gets off on the wrong foot with Inderjeet. She talks to his manager, Dr. Harichandra Prasad, and other musicians who all have differing opinions about Sandhya. While investigating, Divya stages an attack in a bar, getting Inderjeet to save her and takes her to his concert. At the end of the concert, Jennifer, a fan, gets on stage and kisses him. That night, Jennifer is killed by someone wearing Inderjeet's coat. With no better evidence, the police keep a closer eye on Inderjeet and warn Divya that Inderjeet is a possible suspect in Sandhya's death. Divya stages a kidnapping to test Inderjeet's knife skills. But the next day, Inderjeet sees Divya with the bandaged kidnapper walking out of the hospital and realizes that she was faking her love. He comes clean to her about Sandhya. She was an unstable substance abuser who had a thing for him, but he did not reciprocate. She had threatened to commit suicide if he did not reciprocate. He managed to save her and that was the last he had seen of her. The killer, who has pictures that look incriminating, has been blackmailing him into coming to the murder scenes just minutes after the murders. Divya believes him and falls for him. In the course of a long cat-and-mouse sequence between the killer and Inderjeet, the killer is revealed to be Harichandra Prasad the manager, who attacks Dr. Prabhavathy but she survives. Inderjeet finds similar clothing in his closet, and later finds a secret room filled with photographs of the victims. The killer then kidnaps Divya and tells Inderjeet to come to an abandoned house with the photographs. His motive is revealed to be jealousy of the women who lusted after Inderjeet and ignored him. In the course of a giant chase and fight scene, the killer is killed, Inderjeet's name is cleared, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Cast
Kamal Haasan as Inderjeet
Bindiya as Divya
Sivaranjani as Sandhya
Sindhuja as Inderjeet's fan
Chi Guru Dutt as Dr. Harichandra Prasad
Nirmalamma as Dr. Prabhavathy
Nassar as Devananthan
Ashok Rao as Gangadharan
Chinni Jayanth as Inderjeet's assistant
R. S. Shivaji as Inderjeet's assistant
Kazan Khan as Anwar
Mohan Raman as Psychiatrist
Yuvasri as Inderjeet's mother
Production
The film was initially titled Indrajit, but was later retitled Kalaignan. G. B. Vijay was associate director for Prathap Pothan and worked with Kamal Haasan in 1989 filmVetri Vizha which was directed by Pothan and produced by Sivaji Productions. Malayalam cinematographer Jayanan Vincent was in charge of the photography, while Malayalam art-director Sabu Cyril designed disco-themed sets for songs in the film. The film was later dubbed into Hindi-language as Fankaar and Telugu as Police veta and also dubbed in Malayalam-language.
The film was an average grosser at the box office. The Indian Express wrote "A mixture of Sakala Kala Vallavan and Sigappu Rojakkal, the director has used every trick in the book to make the film a slick presentation and goes overboard in the climax ". Shortly after the release of Kalaignan, Kamal Haasan's 1982 Hindi filmSanam Teri Kasam was dubbed and released in Tamil as Paadagan. Still images from his look inKalaignan as a pop singer were used for the publicity of the dubbed film. The director, G. B. Vijay, later moved away from directing feature films and apprenticed under Rajiv Menon as an ad film maker. He played a pivotal role in mentoring Gautham Menon, while he went on to write the dialogues for Minsara Kanavu.
