‘Tu Yaa Main’ and a short history of the crocodile in cinema

Bejoy Nambiar’s Tu Yaa Main, starring Adarsh Gourav and Shanaya Kapoor, is an official Hindi adaptation of the Thai hit The Pool (2018). The February 13 release sees a crocodile attacking our content creator protagonists. A simple collaboration fuelled by romance and passion becomes a battle for survival.

It’s hardly the first time a crocodile has tested the resolve and courage of humans. One of the best-known human-versus-crocodile battles is arguably Rakesh Roshan’s Khoon Bhari Maang (1988), in which Rekha’s heroine is nearly mauled to death after being thrown into a croc-infested river, only to survive and return for revenge.

The blockbuster spawned remakes in Odia, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu, even inspiring the Pakistani production Jungle Queen (2000). The trailer of Tu Yaa Main includes a reference to Khoon Bhari Maang.

The movie that inspired Tu Yaa Main is part of a healthy subset of Thai films about crocodiles. This could be attributed to the popularity of the Thai folktale of Kraithong and Chalawan, in which the merchant Kraithong defeats the shapeshifting crocodile lord Chalawan. Among the adaptation of this legend is reputed creature feature director Sompote Sands’s Chalawan (1972).

Chalawan is now considered a lost film. Sands directed other films on the subject, such as Kraithong (1980) and Kraithong II (1985). Crocodile (1979), about two doctors hunting the beast that killed their fiancees, had nods to...

Read more