Kannan made his debut as a film maker by directing Yaar? (1985), a horror film which gave a breakthrough to actor Arjun in the Tamil film industry. The success of the film prompted the director to use the film's name as a prefix and he subsequently went on to make several films in the late 1980s with Ramarajan including Namma Ooru Nayagan (1988), Anbu Kattalai (1989) and Kaavalan (1990).