When Shanthi Chokkalingam, a passionate Sivaji fan and distributor, decided to restore Sivaji Ganesan’s epic Karnan for new age audiences, little would she have expected the kind of response that the film would receive.

Now, the film, which celebrates 125 days in Chennai today, is all set to release in the US. The digitally redone and re-mastered, QUBE enhanced, DTS version of the film will hit US Screens on July 27.

Shanthi, along with Raj TV (who hold the rights to the movie, spent close to Rs 40 lakh to get the badly damaged sound and video prints of the movie restored in a popular film lab in Chennai. Now, it looks like their hard work has paid rich dividends.

While Karnan wasn’t exactly a superhit during its initial release in 1964, the re-release has become an unqualified success all over Tamil Nadu. The fact that the film is still running to a packed house during weekends in two of Chennai’s premium multiplexes is a testament to the box office pull of its star Sivaji Ganesan and the timeless quality of the film.