Venniradai Moorthy & R. S. Manohar Movies Together List — 4 Films

The shape of the work

The 1970s belonged to CID Shankar; the 1980s to Thanikattu Raja. Venniradai Moorthy acted in every film; R. S. Manohar acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.

Partnership facts

• Director T. N. Balu paired them for the first time in CID Shankar (1970) because he needed a villain who could match M. G. Ramachandran's screen presence. Moorthy was already a known face, but Balu specifically brought in Manohar to play the second lead antagonist — and their face-off scenes became the film's biggest talking point.
• In Justice Viswanathan (1971), Moorthy played the righteous hero and Manohar the cunning villain. But here's the twist: Manohar actually improvised most of his dialogue on set, and Moorthy would adjust his reactions in real time. The director let them run entire scenes without cuts because their back-and-forth was that sharp.
• Despite playing bitter rivals on screen, Moorthy and Manohar were close friends off camera. They shared a room during the shoot of Thanikattu Raja (1982) and would rehearse their fight sequences together at night — often waking up the crew with their laughter.
• Their final collaboration, Raja Rishi (1985), was the only film where they played on the same side — both as supporting characters to Sivaji Ganesan. That film directly inspired a wave of 'sage vs king' dramas in Tamil cinema over the next decade, including the 1990 hit 'Raja Chinna Roja'.
• Manohar once said in a 1986 interview: 'Moorthy was the only actor who could make me forget I was acting. When we faced each other, I wasn't playing a villain — I was genuinely angry at him.'