It was India's official entry for the 68th Academy Awards under the category of Best Foreign Language Film but was not nominated.

The objective is to infiltrate a terrorist group headed by the Naxalite Badri and relay information back to Abbas.

Abbas tightens security at the railway station while Adhi calls his wife from a public telephone booth.

Adhi sees some suspicious activity and tries to investigate, but a sound from his radio alerts the terrorist, and a shootout follows.

The wounded terrorist enters the railway station but is shot dead by Abbas, and the car driver is taken into custody.

Badri reveals that the terrorists have planted a spy in the police department, Srinivasan, who is Abbas and Adhi's mentor.

Overcome with guilt and grief over Abbas's death and his betrayal of his duty, Adhi realises that he is becoming like Srinivasan and decides to end the arrangement.

In 1994, Govind Nihalani invited P. C. Sreeram and Kamal Haasan to a Bombay screening of his Hindi film Drohkaal.

Sreeram, however, preferred Kuruthipunal, as it is also the title of a novel by Indira Parthasarathy, and he felt it had a connection to Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1957).

[7] Besides producing the film and writing the screenplay, Haasan also portrayed the lead character Adhi Narayanan.

[4] While composing the score for Badri, Mahesh decided to make the film sound ominous, and he "wanted the omen of death to reflect" on the character's face.

[19] For the premiere of Kuruthipunal in Madras, Haasan invited numerous Bollywood personalities, including Nihalani and Manmohan Shetty, who produced Drohkaal.

[10] Kuruthipunal was included as part of a retrospective to Kamal Haasan under the category "Director in Focus" at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

[21] On 11 November 1995, K. Vijiyan from New Straits Times praised the film's special effects for their realism but added; "The fear Kamal feels for his family was not properly brought to the screen by Sreeram.

[22] On 19 November, Ananda Vikatan said the film was attempting to turn Tamil cinema, which was quickly moving in the direction of masala entertainers, by bringing in a different screenplay.

[23] R. P. R. of Kalki appreciated the makers for not making compromises for commercial success, the performances of Arjun and Haasan, and the film's realism.

"[10] D. S. Ramanujam of The Hindu wrote that the film "carrying the sheen of a foreign movie with violence getting the same treatment has the phychological conflict.

[7][10] Kuruthipunal attained cult status in Tamil cinema,[27] and has been recognised by many to have set standards for other action films of the period.

[23] Many filmmakers, including Gautham Vasudev Menon and AR Murugadoss, have cited Kuruthipunal as an influence on their works.

Certain dialogues from the film such as "Veeramna enna theriyuma, payam illatha mathiri nadikkarathuthan" (Do you know what bravery is?

[28] Actor Venkatesh Prabhu adopted the screen name Dhanush after being inspired by the covert operation in Kuruthipunal.