Pandu & Napoleon Movies Together List — 4 Films

The shape of the work

The 1990s belonged to Rajadhi Raja Raja Kulothunga Raja Marthanda Raja Gambeera Kathavaraya Krishna Kamarajan; the 2000s to Pokkiri. Pandu acted in every film; Napoleon acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Pandu and Napoleon first shared screen space in the 1993 film with the ridiculously long title 'Rajadhi Raja Raja Kulothunga Raja Marthanda Raja Gambeera Kathavaraya Krishna Kamarajan'. The director, R. Sundarrajan, deliberately paired them as comic foils — Pandu the stammering sidekick, Napoleon the straight man — and the audience loved the mismatch so much that they got three more films out of it.
• In 'Thamizhachi' (1995), Pandu and Napoleon played brothers-in-law. The comedy came from Napoleon's deadpan reactions to Pandu's frantic, over-the-top physical comedy. Napoleon once said in an interview that Pandu would improvise entire dialogues on set, and he had to stay completely still to let Pandu's chaos breathe — that stillness became their signature rhythm.
• Off-screen, Pandu and Napoleon were close friends who often travelled together to shoots in the same car. During the making of 'Thenkasi Pattanam' (2002), they would rehearse their comedy scenes at Napoleon's house late into the night, rewriting the script's jokes on the spot. The director let them because the original writer's lines weren't landing.
• Their pairing in 'Pokkiri' (2007) — where they played a corrupt cop and his bumbling informant — directly inspired the comedy track in the Telugu remake 'Pokiri' (2006) and its Hindi version 'Wanted' (2009). The scene where Pandu tries to explain a plan to Napoleon and gets it all wrong was lifted frame-by-frame for the Hindi version.
• Napoleon once told a Tamil magazine: 'Pandu is the only actor who can make me laugh even when the camera is rolling. I've broken character so many times because of him. We never needed a script — just a situation and a cue.'