This is the Malayalam film that Nagesh Kukunoor ripped off for Dor. This original is far superior IMO, with an unbeatable performance from Meera Jasmine. The DVD from API is PAL-to-NTSC, but about as good as it gets under those circumstances. Audio is mono enhanced to 5.1 ala Ayngaran and sounded excellent to me.

PQ looks amazing, relatively. BTW I thought there will be o4r is a R2 Dor too?

Actually Nagesh bought the remake rights from malayalam director Kamal, though it was not necessary as the movie was based on a true story. He saw Perumazhakalam at some film festival in Goa and was very much moved by the film.

Indeed. That's not exactly ripping off a movie.

I'll retract the accusation then.

I had never read of or heard Nagesh mentioning Perumazhakalam at all and assumed this was a usual case of Bollywood plagiarism.

While Indian filmmakers have no qualms about ripping off Hollywood or Asian films, they are usually pretty good about buying the rights to remakes of films from other Indian languages, since the original producers are more likely to know about the remake than producers in Hollywood, Hong Kong, South Korea, etc.