Together they have scripted an entire chapter of laughter in Malayalam cinema. When director Priyadarsan and actor Mohanlal get together, Charlie Chaplin plays peekaboo with Laurel and Hardy, with lots of colour and songs and dance thrown in. Destiny too has threaded a dramatic script intertwining their lives, onscreen and off. Priyadarsan and Mohanlal grew up in the same neighbourhood in Thiruvananthapuram, went to the same school, played cricket for the same club and were bitten by the film bug. Together they set out for Kodambakkam in Tamil Nadu, the southern film industry's Beverly Hills, to make their career. Then it was like a Priyadarsan reel before intermission as they went through hardship initially before getting a break in the industry. And finally, as in any good comedy, they emerged as the super director-star duo of the Malayalam film industry and even made a mark in Tamil and Hindi.

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE: Mohanlal (left) and Priyadarsan (right) try to make their old magic work in the comedy thriller Kochu Kilichundan Mampazham (below, a still)

Life, however, does not freeze-frame in a jovial shot. In their 40s now and on the threshold of the silver jubilee of their careers, both Mohanlal and Priyadarsan are fighting for survival. They had some of the biggest superflops in the history of the industry last year. Both are resolved to fight back-they are doing another film, Kochu Kilichundan Mampazham, their 29th together.

It is Priyadarsan's 53rd film. Working on the scorching banks of the Bharathapuzha river in Thrissur, he says, "I'm busy with a lot of work outside the Malayalam industry. But I want to come back here. I don't want to end my career in my land as a once-successful director." Produced by Mohanlal's driver-cum-manager Antony Perumbavoor, this movie should turn the tide. Priyadarsan's last Malayalam film Kakkakuyil, which he produced with Mohanlal as usual in the lead, was one of the biggest flops in 2002.

Mohanlal too banks a lot on the film. On the sets, after a gruelling action scene in a marketplace, he comes running to the tent where Priyadarsan sits with his eyes glued to the video monitor. "Is it okay, Priyan?" he asks anxiously. Though Priyadarsan nods, Mohanlal doesn't look satisfied. "We'll take that punch once more," the 43-year-old star runs back with a youngster's fervour. He has to. Mohanlal has not had it this bad. The actor-winner of the National Award in 1999 for Vanaprastham (his second award) and critically acclaimed for his role in the Hindi film Company last year-has not had a recent Malayalam hit. His films in the past two years, Praja, Thandavam and Onnaman, have bombed at the box office. This despite the fact that they were made by some of the biggest hit-makers and cost Rs 2 to 5 crore each, the highest bracket in the Malayalam industry. "I didn't even think for a second they would flop as they were made by those who had made the biggest grossers," says Mohanlal. "But on hindsight I realise those films were ill-planned, and didn't even have a complete script."

The real reason for the flops should have been apparent to the actor. The movies were hackneyed copies of earlier Mohanlal hits. "There is a point beyond which you can't make copies of the original," says Priyadarsan. "Moreover, what these people never used was Lal's biggest asset, the innocence about him." About Kakkakuyil's failure, Priyadarsan says, "I have been away from Malayalam films and didn't realise the public was no longer interested in full-length comedies."

The Rs 3.10-crore Kochu Kilichundan Mampazham too is not so original as an attempt to work their old magic. It is a throwback to the vintage Priyadarsan-Mohanlal genre, the comedy thriller. "It's an attempt to rediscover what Lal is best at, self-mocking comedy," says Priyadarsan. Mohanlal plays a role he has enacted in many Priyadarsan hits like Poochakkoru Mookkuthy, Kilukkam and Chithram where the director brought out the comic streak in the versatile actor to perfection. In Kochu Kilichundan Mampazham, Mohanlal is once again the good-hearted country bumpkin, the 30-something Abdul Khader, who falls in love with the third wife of a local money bag and gets embroiled in a murder case.

For Priyadarsan, whose 12th Hindi film Hungama is soon to be released, proving himself in Malayalam is a matter of heart rather than greenbacks and fame. For the most sought-after ad filmmaker, money and fame are not priorities. His latest biggie is the World Cup Cricket commercials for LG Electronics which involve the various captains. He is still not over the excitement of his "first truly international assignment", a commercial for Procter and Gamble detergent Tide to be shown in Vietnam and Korea. "It was great filming in Ho Chi Minh City. Ho was a hero of my student days," says Priyadarsan. "But it was far more exciting to participate in the second American invasion of Vietnam with a detergent soap after they failed with bombs three decades ago."

But all this fades in the tormenting heat on the banks of Bharathapuzha. "A Malayalam film isn't worth spending so much time and energy on, financially or aesthetically. The Malayalam industry cannot afford the things and people I enjoy working with," says Priyadarsan. "My 435 Arriflex camera is too expensive by the industry's standards. My art director Sabu Cyril is the costliest and the best technician and unaffordable in Malayalam. But I am working with them on my latest film as I have a point to prove here." And for that Priyadarsan and Mohanlal will have to tickle the audience's fancy. Will they have the last laugh?