Pulikkattil Charlie is a nasrani from Travancore, who has struggled hard to take care of his business empire after the death of his father Pulikkattil Mathachan. Charlie's father was a ruthless feudal landlord, who, during his lifetime, had done several heinous crimes. Charlie is now helping all those who had once suffered from the hands of his father.
Mani Kuttan, the son of an ironsmith burned to death by Mathachan for demanding title deed proving his rights on land ownership, is brought up by Charlie as a loving younger brother and a trusted confidant. After suffering a small injury as part of a squabble with Antappan, Manikuttan emotionally recollects witnessing, as a child, the dreadful killing of his parents by Mathachan with Charlie at night.
Charlie is married to a girl named Maya, whose family was annihilated by his father using trained wild dogs, barring her brother Karnan. As retribution, Pulikkattil Mathachan was brutally stabbed to death by Karnan, exacting his revenge, eight years before. While being captured by the police after the murder, Karnan vowed to eliminate the remaining heir of the Pulikkattil family, thus specifying his intention to kill Charlie. For the murder of Mathachan, Karnan is imprisoned for eight years.
Though being a Hindu, Maya is looked after lovingly by Charlie and she too loves him very much. The couple have a toddler son too. Karnan is unaware of the fact that his sister is married to Charlie. Later, he realizes that Charlie is a goodhearted person and gives up revenge and apologizes to Charlie.
The filming progressed in Wadakkancherry, Thrissur district in June 2004.[4] The film shot promo videos and recorded songs for television audience for the pre-release promotions, which was an emerging marketing method in Malayalam film industry at that time. The promo videos were directed by Rajesh Divakaran and edited by Don Max. The songs recorded for the purpose were not included in the film—written Joy Thamalam and composed by Sajjan Madhavan, son of Raveendran.[5]
Naatturajavu was released on 20 August 2004 during Onam in Kerala.[1] The film had a strong opening weekend in Kerala, grossing ₹1.12 crore from 54 stations in three days, and had good run particularly in Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram regions.[7] It was the highest-grossing film among the Onam releases; according to Sify: "the only winner among the Onam releases". It was made on a budget of ₹1.75 crore, in 35 days, the film earned ₹2.27 crore as distributor's share alone from 51 stations. After that, it managed to run with 35 – 40 percent occupancy in Kerala theatres.[8][9]Naatturajavu was the third highest-grossing Malayalam film of the year.[2][3]
