Chanthupottu

Chanthupottu
The music CD cover
Directed by	Lal Jose
Produced by	Lal
Written by	Benny P Nayarambalam
Starring	Dileep Gopika Lal Bhavana Indrajith
Music by	Vidyasagar
Cinematography	Alagappan N
Edited by	Ranjan Abraham
Distributed by	Lal Release & PJ Entertainments
Release date	26 August 2005 (2005-08-26)
Country	India
Language	Malayalam

Chanthupottu is a 2005 Malayalam film directed by Lal Jose, written by Benny P. Nayarambalam, and produced by Lal. The story is about a man named Radhakrishnan (Dileep) who was brought up like a girl by his grandmother. This film was a super hit at the box office. This movie was based on a play of the same name (which, in turn, was based on the life of an actual man with female mannerisms).

Radhakrishnan (Dileep) is dysfunctionally brought up like a girl by his grandmother (Sukumari) who wanted a granddaughter. There by, he becomes effeminate and milquetoast. She calls him Radha, which becomes his nickname. Radha's father Divakaran (Lal) goes to jail for a murder that he accidentally commits. Radha is ridiculed among the people in the village but he is not worried and spends time with the girls singing and teaches dancing. His best friend is Malu (Gopika) who is wooed by Kumaran (Indrajith), a local money lender and the son of the man whom Radha’s father had killed.

Divakaran comes back from jail and is shocked to see that his only son is a good for nothing transvestite, but can do nothing about it. Slowly Radha’s liking for Malu turns into love and when Kumaran sees it, he beats up Radha with the help of her father (Rajan P. Dev), a local astrologer and dumps him in deep sea. But he is saved by Freddy (Biju Menon), a restaurant owner, in some distant shore. Freddy takes him to the former's native where he is living with his sister Rosie (Bhavana) and his grandmother (Valsala Menon), who is a mental patient due to the shock of the sudden death of Freddy's other sibling, Jonfy. He soon becomes a part of their family, as the grandmother begins to identify him as the late Jonfy. With a change in environment, he also discovers the manly element in him and starts to transform from his female mannerisms slowly.

Once, he gets involved in a fight with Cleetus (Sreejith Ravi), an old enemy of Freddy, after Cleetus tries to molest Rosie. During the fight, Cleetus gets severely injured on the head. Radha is forcibly, but sadly circumcised to escape from the police on Freddy's shore.