Legendary Raavan !

Ace director Mani Ratnam presents a modern day version of the great Indian epic Ramayana in his much awaited film Raavan. Mani, who has also written the script for the film, reunites with the super couple Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai after the super hit Guru in 2007. Tamil super star Vikram, who is making his Bollywood debut plays an equally important role in the film. Raavan has an enviable supporting cast comprising of Govinda, Priyamani, Ravi Kishan and Nikhil Dwivedi.

Raavan is rumoured to be a loose adaptation of Ramayana which tells the story of Rama, whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king of Lanka, Ravana. The film will be told from the view point of Ravana. It is also rumoured that Abhishek's character is based on the life of the Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy. Abhishek plays Veera, a naxalite leader of the downtrodden villagers in eastern Madhya Pradesh.

While Aishwarya Rai plays a character inspired by Sita, Vikram enacts the role of Rama in this contemporary version of the epic. The supporting characters are also said to be inspired by the characters from Ramayana. While Govinda is reported to be the modern day version of Hanuman and Nikhil Dwivedi is Lakshman, National Film Award winning actress Priyamani is expected to play the role of Raavan's sister Soorpanaka.

Raavan is also made in Tamil as Raavanan with Vikram playing the title role. While Aishwarya Rai is retained in the role of Sita, Malayalam actor Prithviraj plays the role of Rama in the Tamil version. Also the film will have a dubbed version in Telugu.

Raavan is produced by Mani Ratnam himself under the banner of Madras Talkies. Music of the movie is composed by Academy Awards winner A. R. Rahman. V.Manikandan was the cinematographer during the initial portions of the film but after he left acclaimed cinematographer Santosh Sivan joined the film.