A remake of the Hindi film Insaf Ki Pukar (1987), it stars Rajinikanth, Prabhu, Seetha and Gautami with Pandiyan, Cho Ramaswamy, Ravichandran, Radha Ravi, Senthamarai, Vinu Chakravarthy and Manorama in supporting roles.
Muthuraaj murdered the taxi driver and framed Manohar with his elder brother Rajamanickam, ally Jayaram and a corrupt police inspector Nallasivam.
They discover he has an abundance of illegally earned wealth, and force his wife Kalyani to sign a paper confirming this.
Nallasivam learns about the "raid" in his house and threatens to arrest Raja and Babu, but they gain leverage over him, having created numerous copies of the paper.
While conversing with Padma, Raja realises he is Kandhasamy's first son who went missing years ago during a school trip.
Kandhasamy stops their fight and reveals the truth: he had learned the location of a treasure cave, but wanted to tell only IG Sriram.
Chithra records Rajamanickam and Jayaram's conversation on tape; she gives it to Muthuraaj, who plans revenge along with Nallasivam.
Soon after, Muthuraaj and Nallasivam arrive and create chaos with thugs and bombs; Rajamanickam and Jayaram are killed while Raja, Babu and Kandhasamy escape.
Muthuraman objected, saying that if Rajinikanth did a "guest role", the audience would not accept it and distributors would not buy the film, meaning low chances of profit.
[28] He, Jeeva Sahapthan of Patrikai and writer S. Rajanayagam interpret the scene in which many convicts fight for the chief's chair and Raja sings "Naatkaalikku Sandai Podum Naamellam Paithiyam Thaanda" (People who fight for a chair are mad) as a reference to infighting that occurred within the political party All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) following the death of Tamil Nadu chief minister M. G. Ramachandran on 24 December 1987; after his death, the AIADMK was split into two factions.
[27][35] S. Rajanayagam writes that the scene in which the jailer advises Raja not to visit the jail again, and Raja asks why he should have to come to the jail if those outside are good, mirrors many films in which Rajinikanth's character submits himself to the law and gets punished as a routine but does not generally feel guilty about his petty crimes and is depicted as taking for granted that minor offences are a part of daily living.
[36] Writing for Firstpost in 2014, S. Srinivasan said the film says people with "families and reputations and clean linen shirts to protect" should normally "avoid messing up with the poor, who have nothing to lose, or the rich, who can swat us like a fly".
[37] In another Firstpost article, Apoorva Sripathi noted that the hand gestures Jayaram (Cho Ramaswamy) makes in one scene in which he is in deep thought were actually symbols of the AIADMK, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Indian National Congress.
[38] Film historian Mohan Raman said, "Cho was one person who could spout political dialogues and display his brand of wit ... His comedy in [Guru Sishyan] was satire-driven ... maybe because he was essentially a stage actor".
[48] Guru Sishyan was released on 13 April 1988 during Puthandu, the Tamil New Year holiday,[9][49] and was distributed by Mangaadu Amman Films.
[52] On 24 April 1988, the review board of the magazine Ananda Vikatan praised Guru Sishyan for its comedy and Rajinikanth's performance—especially his English malapropisms—giving it a rating of 40 out of 100.
[53] N. Krishnaswamy of The Indian Express wrote, "Rajinikanth and Prabhu enjoy to the hilt playing their light-hearted roles, lissom newface Gautami and short and square [Seetha] prance around with abandon.
[57] Many of Rajinikanth's English malapropisms such as "Es-kiss me" or "Yes kiss me" instead of "Excuse me",[58][59] "underwear" instead of "understand",[60] "jaundice" instead of "justice",[27] and "ABC" instead of "CBI" gained popularity,[58] as did the scene where Raja and Babu conduct a fake income tax raid.
[61][62] S. Rajanayagam wrote that the imaging of Rajinikanth's politics can be seen in four phases, where the second covers "the period from Guru Sishyan (1988) to Baatshaa [sic] (1995)".
[63] Naman Ramachandran noted that after the release of Guru Sishyan, "overt political commentary would become increasingly common in Rajinikanth's films".
[9] Guru Sishyan was later screened at Chennai's AGS Cinemas on 27 September 2010 as part of their "Rajnikanth Film Festival".
[64] In his review of Sundhara Travels (2002), S. R. Ashok Kumar of The Hindu compared Vinu Chakravarthy's comical police character to Nallasivam.