Ambika

In the zenith of her career she was paired in the same movie with her sister Radha in Kadhal Parisu, where both actresses demonstrated their acting prowess by taking on roles of two young, beautiful sisters, who had strong, yet conflicting personalities. Her role in the movie went on to become a landmark in terms of women-dominated roles in Tamil cinema. The character that Ambika portrayed - that of a of a strong but single woman, unbelievably young and beautiful, with many social causes that she believed passionately in, yet being very powerful with many older men subordinates under her control - provided a prism with many whole new possibilities that stoked the imaginations of South India women living in constrained domestic environments of the time. She carried every aspect of the role with aplomb,excelling at bringing to life a personality which surely helped many among the women audience to think differently about their place in society and question the artificial limits they end up setting up for themselves in their pursuit of happiness and the right to live life the way they desired, without regard to archaic social norms and conditions. Her performance easily eclipsed that of both Kamal Hasan and Radha, the lead pair in the movie, due to the sheer depth of the character she portrayed, coupled with her passionate and brilliant execution. Although Radha was given a lot more screen time, a younger and more glamorous role to perform and multiple lavish song and dance sequences creating a sexy and highly desirable aura around the character, she was still completely overshadowed by her elder sister. This was not only due to the power of Ambika's character in the story line, but also due to the electric screen presence and the powerful performance Ambika delivered, leveraging to the full extent her beauty, experience and maturity. She also scored points for the very subtle and understated ways in which she enhanced the sex appeal and desirability of the character she played, using seemingly innocuous scenes, such as the one where she is changing her saree in front of the mirror, capturing a fleeting, erotic view of her beautiful shapely body simultaneously from both the front and back, as her sister walks into the room.