If there’s one thing Dara Singh never learned to do, it was defeat — not even for a movie. The wrestling legend, whose charm extended far beyond the ring, once took on a Malayalam film in the mid-1980s, only to put his foot down when asked to lose a match on screen.

Long before actors crossed regional boundaries with ease, Dara Singh had already done it. Known for his invincible persona both as a wrestler and as a beloved character actor, Singh appeared in more than 175 films and even founded the Dara Film Studio in Punjab in 1980. By the time debutant director Sibi Malayil and writer Sreenivasan were preparing their 1985 Malayalam romantic comedy Mutharamkunnu PO, Singh was already a household name across India. The team, led by actor Jagadish, managed to convince the superstar wrestler

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