Thillalangadi
Thillalangadi is a 2010 Tamil action comedy film directed by M. Raja that stars his brother Jayam Ravi, Tamannaah Bhatia and Shaam in lead roles, and an extensive supporting cast including Prabhu Ganesan, Suhasini Maniratnam, comedians Vadivelu and Santhanam among others essaying pivotal roles.
A remake of the 2009 Telugu film, Kick, the film features soundtrack composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, whilst Thaman's original score has been reused. The film, produced by Raja's father Mohan and to be distributed by Sun Pictures, released on July 23,opening to mostly positive reviews
Thillalangadi is the story of Krishna(Jayam Ravi) who is a brilliant student and has excelled in all aspects of life but loves to have a 'kick' in his life. He would do anything just to experience this 'kick'
Plot
Krishna (Jayam Ravi) is a happy-go-lucky youngster, who often commits himself into risks as he feels the right Kick over it. Well for Nisha (Tamannaah Bhatia), what starts as a hatred turns into love with Krishna. But sooner as she finds her beau so irresponsible swapping jobs often, she breaks up with him. Sooner the story shifts to Malaysia, where Nisha’s parents arrange her marriage with Krishna Kumar (Shaam), a tough and honest cop. Krishna uncovers that he has traveled all the way to Malaysia to trap a smart thief, who has been looting crores of money from leading tycoons and politicians. The intriguing part of the film is about the fact that the thief is none other than Nisha’s ex-boyfriend Krishna.
Rest of the film is all about how Krishna wins back the heart of Nisha and the reason behind his robberies having a substantial reason.
Cast
- Jayam Ravi as Krishna
- Tamannaah Bhatia as Nisha
- Shaam as Krishna Kumar
- Vadivelu as Jackson or Jacky/John
- Prabhu Ganesan Krishna father
- Suhasini Maniratnam Krishna mother
- Santhanam as Dr. Paul
- Sathyan as Dass
- Manivannan
- Ganja Karuppu
- Radha Ravi
- Mansoor Ali Khan
- Livingston
- Nalini as Vannai Vasanthi
- Mayilsamy
- John Vijay
- Kadhal Dhandapani
- Chandra Lakshman as Shreya
Soundtrack
The Thillalangadi soundtrack is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, working together with director M. Raja for the first time. The soundtrack album features 7 songs, two of which have been reused from the original version, composed by Thaman, as per Raja's wish. The lyrics are penned by Na. Muthukumar and Viveka. The audio was released on 2 July 2010 at the Sun TV studios and premiered on Sun Music in the evening.[3]
| Tracklist | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Singer(s) | Length | |||||
| 1. | "Ding Ding" | Viveka | Vijay Prakash, Naveen | 5:43 | |||||
| 2. | "Sol Pechu" | Na. Muthukumar | Yuvan Shankar Raja, K. S. Chitra, Shreya Ghoshal | 6:17 | |||||
| 3. | "Pootta Paathadhum" (Composed by Thaman) | Viveka | Suchitra | 3:39 | |||||
| 4. | "Memory Loss" | Viveka | Kailash Kher, Ranjith | 6:33 | |||||
| 5. | "Pattu Pattu" | Na. Muthukumar | Silambarasan Rajendar, Manasi Scott | 5:51 | |||||
| 6. | "Idhayam Karaikirathe" (Composed by Thaman) | Viveka | Srivardhini | 2:35 | |||||
| 7. | "Thothu Ponen" | Viveka | Shankar Mahadevan | 4:20 | |||||
| Total length: | 34:59 | ||||||||
Production
Development
After the Telugu film Kick, directed by Surender Reddy and starring Ravi Teja, Ileana D'Cruz and Shaam in lead roles, which was released in early May 2009, went on to become highly successful at the box office, 'Editor' Mohan, father of M. Raja and Jayam Ravi, bagged the remake rights for the Tamil version, paying an "astronomical amount", less than one month later. While Mohan himself would produce the film, Mohan's elder son, M. Raja, was made the director, directing again his brother Jayam Ravi, who would later bag the lead role in the film. It is, noticeably, the fifth "remake project" of this combo, featuring 'Editor' Mohan as the producer, M. Raja as the director and Jayam Ravi as the lead actor, after Jayam, M. Kumaran son of Mahalakshmi, Something Something ... Unakkum Enakkum and Santosh Subramaniam.Casting
For the lead role, played by Ravi Teja in the original version, several popular actors, including Vijay and Madhavan were considered and approached. As per reports, this film was planned to be Vijay's 51st film, which, however, turned out to be not true. Finally, Jayam Ravi was roped in for the role, teaming up once again with his father and brother.
The lead female role, originally played by Ileana D'Cruz, was eventually bagged by Tamannaah Bhatia. Initially, the crew had planned to sign Ileana for the same role in Tamil as well and approached her, but her father is said to have refused the offer as he didn't want his daughter to play the same role again. Also actress Bhanu, who had starred in the films Thaamirabharani and the very recently released Azhagar Malai, was approached for the role. However, she, too, reused the offer as she felt the role was too glamorous and she wouldn't fit the role. Whilst all his earlier remakes had the actress, who played the role in the original film, in the Tamil version as well, M. Raja, for the first time, was not able to sign the actress of the original Telugu version.
Meanwhile, Shaam, who played a vital role in the Telugu version, took up the same the role in Tamil, whilst Prabhu Ganesan was roped in for a "significant role" and Vadivelu and Santhanam were roped in for the film's comedy portions. Prabhu Ganesan would be playing the role of Ravi's father, which was played by Sayaji Shinde in the original version. It was said, that yesteryear actor Karthik Muthuraman was initially considered and approached for the role, before Prabhu Ganesan was finally confirmed. Suhasini Mani Ratnam was roped in to enact Ravi's mother character. Unlike in Raja's earlier remakes, which all had music scored by the composer who scored the original version and the same songs as well (except for M. Kumaran Son Of Mahalakshmi), composer Yuvan Shankar Raja was roped in for the musical score this time, replacing Thaman, who composed the music of Kick. Apart from Vadivelu and Santhanam, the film stars an array of comedians such as Livingston, Mayilsamy, Kanja Karuppu, Manobala, Thyagu and Sathyan as well.
Filming
The film was formally launched on 19 August 2009 at AVM Studios. The first shot, featuring Jayam Ravi and Tamannaah, was directed by S. Shankar, with actor Vijay giving the inaugural clap shot. The launch was attended by many prominent people from the Tamil film industry as Tamil Film Producers Council chief Ramanarayanan, KRG, Abirami Ramanathan, S. A. Chandrasekhar, R. B. Chowdhary, Ram Kumar, Kasthuri Raja, PL Thenappan, actor Karthi and actress Kushboo Sundar among others.
The film was shot at various locations, including Chennai (India), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Bangkok (Thailand) and Singapore. The crew, including director Raja, Jayam Ravi, manager Senthil, cinematographer Rajsekhar and art director Milan had been looking for locations in Malaysia in August 2009, after which the film shooting began. At first, shooting was held in Chennai for nearly 20 days, following which the crew flew to Malaysia, where a major portion of the film was to be shot, where the original film was shot as well. By mid-November, the crew had completed a 30-day schedule in Malaysia. The shoot in Malaysia involved an action sequence, filmed by three cameras simultaneously, which was shot on busy roads with special permissions from the local police authorities and a song sequence featuring Ravi and Tamannaah. Shooting was held also at the famous Petronas Twin Towers and on the Singapore-Malaysian railway line. During the 30-day filming, the September 2009 Sumatra earthquakes occurred, which the team luckily survived. In late January 2010, a special song ("Solpechu Ketkadha Sundari"), widely publicized as the "360 degree song" was shot. It was filmed using a Nero motion control camera that revolves on a 360 degree angle set, which was handled by an Australian specialist Scott and would later look like a single shot. This song, choreographed by Shobi, which would feature 15 Jayam Ravis and 5 Tamannaahs, was completed in around 45 hours, on which alone nearly Rs. 75 lakhs was said to be spent.
