Vijayakanth & Jaishankar Movies Together List — 12 Films

The shape of the work

The 1980s account for 92% of everything they made together. The 1980s belonged to 24 Mani Neram; the 1990s to Dharma. Vijayakanth acted in every film; Jaishankar acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Jaishankar was already a star when he agreed to do Om Sakthi (1982) with Vijayakanth, who was still finding his footing. The director, R. Sundarrajan, actually convinced Jaishankar to do the film by promising him a role that would let him mentor the younger actor on screen — and off it.
• In Vellai Pura Ondru (1984), Jaishankar played the calm, measured father figure while Vijayakanth played the hot-headed son. The tension worked because Jaishankar deliberately slowed his dialogue delivery to force Vijayakanth to match his rhythm — a trick he taught him on set.
• Jaishankar personally drove Vijayakanth to the hospital after he collapsed from exhaustion during the shoot of Nambinar Keduvathillai (1986). He stayed at the hospital all night and told reporters the next day, 'This boy works like a machine, but machines also need rest.'
• Their pairing in Idhu Enga Boomi (1984) directly inspired director R. Sundarrajan to cast them again as father-son in Kudumbam (1984) — which then became a template for the 'strict father, rebellious son' trope that Tamil cinema milked for the next decade.
• Vijayakanth once said in a 1990 interview: 'Jaishankar sir taught me that acting is not about shouting louder than the other person. In Solvathellam Unmai (1987), he made me do a scene where I had to cry without a single tear — just my eyes. That was his class.'
• After Dharma (1998), their last film together, the two never spoke again. No fight — just drifted apart. Jaishankar later told a friend, 'He became a politician. I became a memory. That's how these things go.'