Karunkaran hails from a middle class Malayali family. He is interested in films since his childhood. He wanted to enter film industry after his tenth standard but his parents forced me to take up Polytechnic. He completed his polytechnic at the age of 18 and ventured in to film industry.

Karunkaran got married in 1999. He married the daughter of his father’s childhood friend. He liked her instantly and asked his parents to fix the match.

After his studies, Karunkaran came to Madras and joined as an assistant to Mr.Bhagyaraja and with Shankar later on. He did also work as an assistant to a few small time directors. He suffered a lot then and even worked for an ad agency to make both ends meet.

One day he saw Pawan Kalyan picture on a Tamil magazine and decided him to be hero his script (Tholi Prema). He came all the way to Hyderabad and it took 7 months to meet Pawan Kalyan. The actor liked the script immensely and the film went on to become a big hit.

His second film, Yuvakudu has Bhumika Chawla making her filmy debut. The film went on to become a big flop as the director twisted the climax of the love story to a patriotic subject basing on a real life incident in Bihar in which a soldier called Sanjay Arora unearthed bombs at 10 places in Coimbattoor during the Advani tour in late 1990's.

In 2002, he directed Victory Venkatesh in Vaasu movie. The film is about a son of a police commissioner who wants a career in music while his father wants him to be an IPS officer. The music of the album was a big hit then. But audience did not accept Venkatesh is such a youthful role and the movie went on to become a flop.

In 2005, he once again directed Pawan Kalyan in Balu ABCDEFG. Since the duo have delivered a blockbuster with their earlier film, Tholi Prema, there was huge hype surrounding the movie but it fell flat the box office and ended up as an average commercial grosser. His next film, Happy with Allu Arjun brought back smile on his face after the film went on to become a decent hit.

In 2008, Karunkaran staged a comeback with Utsahanga Ullasanga movie starring Yasho Sagar and Sneha Ullal. The film went on to become a blockbuster. His next film, Darling with Prabhas is also a blockbuster. It is also the biggest hit in Prabhas’ career that time.

However both his recent films – Endhukante Premanta with Ram and Chinnadana Nee Kosam with Nithin did not work as much as he would have liked.

• Karunakaran always wear a cap due to his receding hairline.
• He usually has his heroines wearing full white dress in the introduction scenes of his films as he want to show them as Angels. He did not have such scene in his last film Endhukante Premanta.

• Yet to be announced.