My Wife's Murder: This RGV film failed to excite his fans in 2005

Penmetsa Ram Gopal Varma (RGV for his fans and foes) is a top-of-the-mind celebrity in Indian cinema. There are of course, divergent opinions about his abilities and his career trajectory (Over 85+ films in a tenure of over three decades, beginning with 'Shiva' in 1989).

His unconventional attitude and a devil-may-care approach has made him a media magnet, though he has been contemptuous of them openly, many a times, earning him more publicity in the process.

16 years after he had arrived in the Indian film industry, which has more than 40 films of his released in Hindi till date, either as remakes or as simultaneous productions, RGV had come up with a film very interestingly titled ' My Wife's Murder'.

Released on August 19,2005 it was a remake of the director's Telugu film ' MadhyanamHatya' which featured the director's favourite artiste J D Chakravarthy apart from Bhanuchander, Aamani and Priyanka Kothari in leading roles.

The Hindi version had the two top names – BomanIrani and Anil Kapoor – the former having made an impression as a versatile artiste with his 2003 hit ' Munna Bhai MBBS'. Anil Kapoor was just getting into a second innings mode by then after a lull when the Khan heroes had taken over the industry a decade ago.

As online sources like Wikipedia refer the film's plot to be inspired by Luton Sack murder case, the flick, an ostensible mix of crime and investigation was probably the only Telugu film to be remade that year into Hindi.

With the market moving towards varying trends of storytelling, an evergreen one like murder mystery surprisingly failed to appeal, despite it being helmed by the master storyteller of crime and passion like RGV.

The maverick director's four films were released in Hindi in 2004, out of which ' AbTakChhappan' had made a mark. In 2005, apart from this film which was the first in the year, Varma had seven releases including one remake in Tamil produced by him. 'Sarkar', featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan saved it for him from having that year as a complete disaster.

Yet, Varma kept on making films in Hindi and made forays into Kannada too, a decade later with the story of the notorious sandalwood smuggler Veerappan. He is also surprisingly a recipient of the National Film Award for his 1999 film ' Shool' which showed ManojBajpayee in a terrific role as a frustrated cop.

Yet, as a hallmark to his continuing time in Indian cinema, Varma has never been assured of a hit despite a great media strategy and advance publicity to his films. This release also is proof of that.