A delightful old-school energy takes you by surprise as you’re pulled into the world of debutant Sivabalan Muthukumar’s quirky black comedy, Bloody Beggar. It’s a fresh and bizarre attempt, especially for our times, and even the conviction to conceive something of this sort deserves praise.

Remember those old movies in which greed and bad blood drive a wedge between members of a lavish joint family? Titles like Vietnam Veedu, Anbu Sagodharargal or the more unconventional Andha Naal come to mind. With Bloody Beggar, Sivabalan takes such a setting (and the dramatic acting scales of those times), writes many colourful characters with hilarious quirks, and puts a delectably contemporary twist to this suite — it’s the Knives Out of Tamil cinema in a way. The result is a film that works like a charm

You can tell this story from many perspectives but let’s look at it from the viewpoint of two characters who share an unstated cosmic connection. On one end we have a crooked little beggar (played by Kavin; we’ll call him Beggar), who lives with a young boy named Jack; Beggar uses dubious means to earn a living while Jack sells stationery at traffic intersections. One day, Beggar and Jack decide to watch an old film called Kaettadhai Koduppavane, starring late veteran actor Chandrabose (Radha Ravi) as Lord Shiva. After Beggar scolds Jack for falling short on cash and leaves him at the entrance, the latter asks the Lord on the poster to teach Beggar a lesson and take him away. Call it a divine intervention as Beggar gets trapped inside the house of Chandrabose the following day and has to deal with one too many hurdles to find a way back.

Here is another perspective: once upon a time, there lived a famous actor named Chandrabose, whose four children (Prudhvi Raj, Priyadarshini Rajkumar, Miss Saleema and Padam Venu Kumar) turned out to be the very definition of brats. They grow up and give birth to mini versions of themselves, and after the death of Chandrabose, realise that their father had bequeathed most of his properties (worth more than 200 crores) to his bastard son, whom he had given up for adoption. This son gets killed off by a crooked lawyer (Sunil Sukhada) to favour one of the daughters of Chandrabose, and just as the lawyer is waiting for a scapegoat, he finds a beggar hiding in their bungalow, listening to all their schemes. Chandrabose and Beggar, two ends of the social spectrum, are brought together by fate again, and a dark yet hilarious ride ensues.