P. Kumar, popularly known as Pon Kumaran, is a filmmaker and screenwriter who works predominantly in Kannada and Tamil cinema. He made his directorial debut with the Kiccha Sudeep starrer Vishnuvardhana (2011), which earned him the SIIMA Award for Best Debutant Director besides a Filmfare Award nomination for Best Director. Subsequently, the filmmaker helmed the multilingual horror thriller Chaarulatha (2012) starring Priyamani, which opened to largely mixed reviews.

Kumaran is known for his penchant for remaking films, and some of his own films have also been remade. While Vishnuvardhana (2011) was remade in Bengali as Bachchan (2014), the director remade the Malayalam films Mayamohini (2012), Ustad Hotel (2012) and His Highness Abdullah (1990) as Jai Lalitha (2014), Gowdru Hotel (2017) and Raja Rajendra (2015) respectively.

In 2019, Pon Kumaran co-directed the Kannada movie Yajamana, which starred Darshan and Rashmika Mandanna in the lead roles.