Naan Mahaan Allai (2010) நான் மகான் அல்ல Tamil

Naan Mahaan Allai (2010) நான் மகான் அல்ல Tamil

Naan Mahaan Alla (Tamil: நான் மகான் அல்ல; English: I'm Not a Saint) is a 2010 Tamil-language drama-thriller film written and directed by Suseenthiran. It stars Karthi, Kajal Aggarwal, Jayaprakash and Soori. It features music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography handled by R. Madhi and was produced by K. E. Gnanavelraja and distributed by Dayanidhi Azhagiri's Cloud Nine Movies.^[1] The film, not related to the namesake 1984 Rajinikanth-starrer,^[2] but based on a real life incident,^[3] released on 20 August 2010 to positive reviews.^[4][5]

It was later dubbed in Telugu as Naa Peru Shiva, released across 230 screens in Andhra Pradesh and became a success there too.

[edit]Plot

Jeeva (Karthi) is a typical Chennai youngster. His father Pragasam (Jayaprakash), a call taxi driver, showers love and affection on him. They lead a simple life and derive happiness in whatever they do. One day, Jeeva comes across Priya (Kajal Aggarwal) at the wedding of their mutual friends. The two fall for each other. He doesn't tell her about his feelings and knows that she likes him. He plays hard to get until their mutual friend tells Priya about Jeeva's infatuation. Jeeva tries to make her become more independent. One day he goes up to Priya's father against her pleas and tells him of their love. Jeeva eventually secures a good job as that is one of the requirements for him to marry Priya. Eventually Priya becomes acquainted with Jeeva's family and is accepted as the future bride.

When all seems to go well, a murder attempt on Jeeva’s father disturbs everything. Jeeva’s father had witnessed a girl being taken by a group of sociopathic teenagers in his taxi. The girl gets rapped and killed. To get rid of the body of the girl and her boyfriend they hack both the bodies into small pieces and dumps them in random dump-yards in the city. When police accidentally recovers the head of the girl from a dumpyard, it is reported on TV. Jeeva's father suspects that the head recovered might belong to a girl who was taken by guys who board his taxi. So he decides to knock on the doors of justice and confirms to the police that the girl in his taxi and the murdered girl are the same. Sensing trouble, the gang plans to murder him as he has seen the faces of couple of guys in the gang while they took the girl. So they go to Pey(Ghost) Babu, the uncle of one of the teenagers, a local criminal who is adept at coming up with plans for murdering people . They conduct reconnaissance of Jeeva's father and their home . They also come to know about the upcoming marriage of Jeeva's sister when Pey Babu under the guise of delivering a Pamphlet takes a good look at Jeeva's family. Pey Babu assumes that Jeeva's family has to venture outside their home as they have make arrangements for the impending marriage. The gang follows the Jeeva's family to a wedding card shop where the gang hears the owner of the shop asking Jeeva and his father to come back in a couple of days to collect the printed cards. Now that Pey Babu knows the exact location and time of where Jeeva's father is going to be, he comes up with a detailed plan for murder. When Jeeva and his father return to the shop after two days, the gang starts a commotion in the crowded street and in the ensuing confusion, one of the gang stabs Jeeva's father with a Poisoned Glass SHRAPNEL.

During the murder Jeeva notices and identifies one of the Gang members as he looked like the same person that his father described during the previous investigation of the Girl's Murder. The death of his father shatters Jeeva. The investigation of his father's murder brings the police to Jeeva's home where they ask him whether he had seen any suspicious person in his neighborhood in the days before his father's murder. Jeeva denys seeing any suspicious person although he later reveals to his friend that he indeed has seen a strange guy delivering pamphlets to his home and the guy during his father's murder. When his friend inquires why he did not say anything to the Police, Jeeva replies the guys does not deserve an police investigation and court trial. The heinous crime they committed, hacking a girl into pieces, deserves much harsher punishment. And he says that he is going to personally punish the gang not because they killed his father but because of the heinous and psychopathic nature of their crimes. He sets out on a mission to identify the culprits and goes running around the town baying for their blood.

Jeeva seeks the help of his friend Kaasimedu Kutti Nadesan, a chennai gangster, who Jeeva got acquainted with in the past. Nadesan with his influence asks his gang to bring all the Guys who plans for murder in Chennai, so that Jeeva can identify him. It turns out there are only four people who can plan for murder in Chennai including Pey Babu. Nadesan interrogates the first person in front of Jeeva. The next is Pey Babu, but Jeeva gets distracted, but turns back just in time to look at Pey Babu and identifies him as the person who delivered Pamphlets to his home days before his dad's murder. Now a chase ensues and Jeeva successfully captures and subdues Pey. Now Jeeva coerces Pey into taking him to where the Teenage gang is. Both Pey and Jeeva goes to the road in front of the college where the five teenagers study. But before he can get hold of them, the gangs gets alerted and start a commotion by throwing cool drink bottles in the crowd. In the ensuing melee, Pey gets stabbed by one of the gang and Jeeva gets a clear look at the guy who stabbed Pey. So Jeeva chases him and beats him senseless . But the teenager gets killed by a train when he tries to escape the clutches of Jeeva. Jeeva subsequently goes to the dead teenager's funeral hoping that his friends will come there. The gang arrives but sees Jeeva before he sees them .

They leave the funeral and to get drunk goes to one of the beaches which coincidentally is the same place Nadesan returns back after going to the sea. The gang argues among themselves how their friend got killed by Jeeva and how they should avenge him. At the same time Jeeva calls Nadesan on his cell phone to use his influence to investigate about the friends of the Dead teenager. The gang while arguing starts shouting which distracts Nadesan and looking at them Nadesan asks Jeeva about the how the gang looks like. Sensing that Jeeva's description matches the gang on the beach, Nadesan goes to inquire them while giving the phone to another one of his group to give Jeeva, the directions to the beach. During the inquiry Nadesan confirms the Killers and the gang on the beach are the same but before he can do anything the gang clubs one of Nadesan's group and runs into a nearby area with dilapidated houses. Nadesan and two of his group grabs weapons and goes after them but they are killed easily as they are outnumbered by the four teenagers who hide and attack and finish them off one by one. Jeeva arrives just a few minutes late to see that Nadesan and his group slaughtered.

Now it is up to Jeeva to face four guys armed with blades and avenge his father's death. What follows is a intense, gut wrenching fight for survival between the gang and Jeeva. After a struggle Jeeva triumphs over the four rapists and buries them alive on the beach.

[edit]Cast

• Karthi as Jeeva
• Kajal Aggarwal as Priya
• Jayaprakash as Pragasam
• Soori as Ravi
• Raviprakash as Sudharsan
• Rajeevan
• Vijay Sethupathi
• Vairavan
• Lakshmi Ramakrishnan as Jeeva's mother
• Neelima Rani as Sudha
• Krishna Priya as Keerthi Pragasam
• Vinod Kishan
• Thanjai Mahendran
• Ramachandran
• Aruldass as Kutti Nadesan

[edit]Production

[edit]Development

After his first feature film Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu, released in February 2009, became a success, receiving much critical acclaim as well, director Suseenthiran started to work on the script for his next film. Initially planning to do one titled Azhagarsamiyin Kudhirai, which failed to commence due to financial problems, he decided to first direct a film featuring a known lead actor, before coming back to that film.^[7] He was ready with the script by August 2009, revealing details about the project. While his previous work was based on sporting incidents in a rural background, this one was said to be a "total city subject", shot entirely in Chennai.^[8] An action family entertainer, it would deal about problems in city life, according to Suseenthiran.^[8] On 19 August 2009, it was announced that the film was titled Naan Mahaan Alla and would be produced by K. E. Gnanavelraja under the banner of Studio Green, who earlier had produced Surya's Sillunu Oru Kadhal and the award-winning Paruthiveeran by Ameer Sultan, which incidentally also starred Karthi in the lead role.^[9] It was reportedly based on a real-life incident that happened to one of the relatives of director Suseenthiran.^[10] He scripted the film for five months.^[11]

[edit]Casting

While Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu (Suseenthiran's first feature film) starred mostly newcomers, he chose Karthi for the lead role in this film as he felt that Karthi has an "innocence in his face" that was needed for this role and that he could "convey charm, innocence and being jolly at the same time".^[8] For the lead female role, Kajal Aggarwal, who had appeared in Tamil films as Pazhani, Saroja and Modhi Vilayadu, was roped in. Suseenthiran chose her after seeing her performances in the Telugu films Chandamama and Magadheera. He felt that her "cute expressions" were what he needed for that character.^[8] While Karthi's character is a middle-class bank employee, Aggarwal would play an employee in a mobile phone company.^[8]

Soori, who also played a comedic role in Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu was again included, while Jayaprakash, who essayed several supporting roles and rose to fame with his performance in Pasanga was chosen to play Karthi's father.^[11] As in his previous film, Suseenthiran introduced several new artists,^[11] such as five boys who played the villains.^[12]According to the director, he found three of them "loitering on a popular road in the city", whilst cinematographer Vijay Milton's assistant Ramachandran and cinematographer Aruldass debuted and played pivotal roles.^[13]

[edit]Filming

Filming began, after ten days of rehearsals,^[11] on 4 September 2009 and was held in cities as Chennai, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.^[9] In mid-September, reported locations included East Coast Road (ECR) near Chennai^[14] and later in the environs of the highways near Poonamallee in Chennai.^[15]

[edit]Soundtrack

Naan Mahaan Alla
Soundtrack album by Yuvan Shankar Raja
Released	16 July 2010
Recorded	2009-10
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	24:21
Label	Think Music
Producer	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Yuvan Shankar Raja chronology
Thillalangadi (2010) Naan Mahaan Alla (2010) Boss Engira Bhaskaran (2010)

The soundtrack of Naan Mahaan Alla is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, making this his third collaboration with Karthi, after scoring highly successful results with Paruthiveeran (2007) and Paiyaa (2010),^[16][17] and his first with director Suseenthiran, who worked withV. Selvaganesh for his previous film. The soundtrack album, which was released on 16 July 2010 at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai,^[18]features five songs, with lyrics penned by Na. Muthukumar and Yuga Bharathy. The song "Va Va Nilava Pudichi" is repeated at the end of the album, with singer Rahul Nambiar credited for both. Nambiar, however, stated on his Facebook site that two versions were recorded featuring his and Haricharan's voice, respectively, but that both songs in the album were rendered by Haricharan only and his own version wasn't included at all. The songs were later dubbed for the Telugu version Naa Peru Shiva. The Telugu album was launched on June 25, 2011.^[19]

Only three songs were used in the film in their entirety, with "Oru Maalai Neram" being left out completely. The album received favorable reviews, with "Iragai Pole" in particular, sung by composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, becoming very popular.^[20] Before the soundtrack release, Yuvan claimed on Twitter that the song was one of his favorites, on which he had worked for days.^[21] Interestingly, after seeing the entire film, he was said to have remixed and completely reworked that song, altering the orchestration inter alia, to match it with the visuals.^[22] He garnered accolades for the film's score as well. As per Suseenthiran, the music was "crucial" in the second half of the film, which was the reason for opting for Yuvan Shankar.^[11] According to Karthi, Yuvan had worked for 12 days for the score of the second half, which has "hardly any dialogues", adding that he was the one "who narrates the story in the second half through his music".^[22]

Tracklist
No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Va Va Nilava Pudichi" (Singer credited as Rahul Nambiar)	Na. Muthukumar	Rahul Nambiar	04:47
2.	"Iragai Pole"	Yugabharathy	Yuvan Shankar Raja, Tanvi Shah	05:19
3.	"Oru Maalai Neram" (Not featured in the film)	Na. Muthukumar	Javed Ali, Shilpa Rao	04:46
4.	"Theivam Illai"	Yugabharathy	Madhu Balakrishnan	04:41
5.	"Va Va Nilava Pudichi II" (Singer credited as Rahul Nambiar)	Na. Muthukumar	Rahul Nambiar	04:47

Paiya (2010) with Eng Sub

Paiya (2010) with Eng Sub

Paiyaa (English: Boy) is a 2010 blockbuster Tamil romantic action film written and directed by N. Linguswamy.^[4] It stars Karthiand Tamannaah, with Milind Soman, Sonia Deepti and Jagan appearing in supporting roles.^[5] The film follows the journey of two strangers—a jobless carefree man, living in Bangalore, and a woman with whom he has fallen in love. Upon the woman's request, he drives her to Mumbai, while a group of gangsters follow them, planning to kidnap the woman. Meanwhile, the man also has a past in the city and he goes there to sort it out.

The film, produced by N. Subash Chandra Bose under the banner of Thirupathi Brothers and distributed by Dhayanidhi Alagiri'sCloud Nine Movies, features a film score and soundtrack composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, cinematography by Madhi and editing by Anthony Gonsalves. Following a lengthy pre-production phase, during which the film underwent major changes in its main cast and its technical crew, it began shooting in December 2008 at various locations throughout South India, most notably in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.^[6] The film was released on 2 April 2010 to predominantly positive reviews and was commercially successful.^[7][8] A Telugu dubbing version of the film titled Awara was released on 21 May in Andhra Pradeshand also received a positive response.^[9] Paiyaa was remade in Bengali as Jaaneman, starring Soham Chakraborty and Koel Mullick.

Plot

[edit]

Shiva (Karthi) is a young, carefree, unemployed man staying in Bangalore. He has a loyal group of friends including his best friend, a young woman named Priya (Sonia Deepti) with whom he shares his feelings. His friends are determined to get him a job. One day he sees a young, beautiful woman named Charulatha (Tamannaah), who is also looking for a job. Shiva is immediately attracted to her. He subsequently spots Charulatha on various occasions and follows her, but loses sight of her each time. He even misses a job interview Priya has arranged for him.

Later, as Shiva waits at the railway station to pick up a friend and owner of the car Shiva and his friends use, he is confronted by a tense Charulatha, accompanied by her uncle. They assume that Shiva is a cab driver and ask him to take them to Chennai. An excited Shiva accepts the offer and takes them. While stopping to refuel the car, Charulatha suddenly requests Shiva to drive on, leaving her uncle behind; Shiva does as she wishes and takes off. She first asks Shiva to drop her at the airport but she misses the flight and later at a railway station, she is unable to go by train,so she asks Shiva if he will take her to Mumbai by car.

Shiva instantly agrees and drives her to Mumbai. Shiva tries to get into a conversation with Charulatha. She initially refuses to talk, but eventually gives in and tells him about her background. It comes to light that Charulatha's mother, who had always supported her daughter, died after a violent altercation with her father; since then her father has tried to force Charulatha to marry an unknown man of his choice. Not willing to bow to her father's wishes, she had escaped from home, but was later found by her father's business partner, Jayaraman, her supposed uncle. He was about to take her to register the marriage arranged by her father when Charulatha tried to escape, leaving him behind at the filling station. Now she wants to head to Mumbai to stay at her grandmother's home.

However, she is being followed by a gang, led by a furious Telugu-speaking lady. Shiva manages to lose the pursuers and decides to change the route in order to avoid the gang, but encounters a second gang. He realizes that this gang is not following Charulatha, but himself, as they are the henchmen of a Mumbai-based gangster Baali (Milind Soman). He recalls an incident that happened some years ago in Mumbai, when he stayed there at his friend Poochi's (Jagan) house. He had beaten one of Baali's men, who had attacked him, and later Baali himself, not knowing about him and his reputation in the city, and returned to Bangalore. Both gangs are following the couple to achieve their own ends. After reaching Mumbai and experiencing a series of events, they end up at Poochi's house. Poochi finds out where the grandmother lives and Shiva brings Charulatha there. Shiva, unable to bear the thought that the journey is complete, leaves silently only to find Charulatha on the road. After hesitating, she reveals that her relatives had spoken ill about her parents, which prompted her leave, not wanting to push the matter further. While in a state of doubt, they are attacked by Baali's gang, who have teamed up with Jayaraman.

Shiva saves Charulatha from the clutches of the goons by single-handedly overpowering them. While on their way back to Bangalore, his friends arrive. Priya, whom Shiva has called often, tells Charulatha of his feelings for her. Charulatha reciprocates Shiva's love, as she too has fallen for him during the journey. They both hug each other and the film ends with the song "Thuli Thuli" playing in the background.

[edit]

Cast

• Karthi as Shiva, a carefree man living in Bangalore. He falls in love with Charulatha and drives her to Mumbai, freeing her from the clutches of her uncle and his men.
• Tamannaah as Charulatha. She also lives in Bangalore after fleeing from a forced marriage arranged by her father.
• Milind Soman as Baali, a gangster based in Mumbai. He plans to kill Shiva, who had humiliated him during his first trip to Mumbai, but the plan backfires, and his men are beaten up after repeated attempts to confront Shiva.
• Sonia Deepti as Priya, Shiva's best friend. She cares a lot about Shiva and works to find him a job. Shiva shares his feelings only with Priya.
• Jagan as Poochi, a young simpleton and friend of Shiva, who lives in Mumbai. He becomes frightened after seeing Shiva beat up Baali's men and immediately drives him out of the city. He also changes his looks in order to avoid any more involvement in their gang.
• Anushka Shetty in a deleted Song (Cameo appearance).

[edit]

Production

[edit]

Development

In September 2007, while working on Bheema, a film starring Vikram, Linguswamy announced that Karthi would star in his next venture to be launched in January 2008.^[10] He said that he had written a story "suitable for Karthi", further adding that it would be "an action oriented film".^[11] The following month, sources suggested that he was planning a bilingual project, filming simultaneously in Tamil and Telugu with Karthi and Ram Charan Teja, respectively.^[12][13] However in early November, reports claimed that Vishal would portray the protagonist after Linguswamy had considered Jayam Ravi for the lead character.^[14][15] The reports proved to be false and Karthi was confirmed as the lead actor of the film.^[16]

The film failed to begin production in January 2008, with sources reporting in March that Linguswamy was still working on the script. The film was yet to be titled. It was to feature the main crew members of Bheema, including music director Harris Jayaraj, cinematographer R. D. Rajasekhar and editor Anthony.^[17] Linguswamy later announced the film with an entirely new crew; Yuvan Shankar Raja replaced Jayaraj as the film's music composer,^[18] and Madhi was selected as the cinematographer, after Rajasekhar had opted out of the project as he was busy working on Jaggubhai.^[19] Linguswamy chose Priya Manikandan, wife of cinematographer Manikandan, as the chief costume designer, for whom Paiyaawould be her first film project.^[20] Linguswamy further revealed that the film would be produced by his home production studio Thirupathi Brothers and denied that it was a remake of a Telugu film.^[21] Lingusamy disclosed later that he had written two scripts, out of which Karthi eventually chose Paiyaa,^[22] because he wanted to do an "urban love story" after two successive roles as a ruffian.^[23] Initially titled as Kuthirai, it was later renamed as Paiyaa,^[24] which was considered a tentative, working title only^[25]. Karthi said he was " ... dying to start shooting for Paiyaa " and to " ... wear good clothes ... and he accepted the film because he " ... desperately wanted to play a cool dude on screen^[26][27].

The filming was supposed to begin in August 2009.^[28] However, due to the slow progress of Karthi's ongoing project, Aayirathil Oruvan, Paiyaa was postponed several times,^[29]since Karthi needed to maintain the continuity of his looks for his role in Aayirathil Oruvan. Its producer Ravindran complained at the Tamil Film Producers Council that Karthi was trying to change his look and move on to Paiyaa before finishing his commitments, which forced Linguswamy to readjust the schedules.^[30] The shooting finally began in December 2008. The film's music was released in November 2009 along with the trailer.^[31] In late 2009, after finishing the filming of Paiyaa, Lingusamy disclosed his plans of remaking the film in Telugu and Hindi as well.^[32] Later, as Yuganikki Okkadu, the Telugu dubbed version of Karthi's Aayirathil Oruvan, emerged as successful in Andhra Pradesh,^[33] the team instead decided to dub and release the film in Telugu to cash in on Karthi's new-found popularity in the state.^[9][34] The Telugu version was titled Awara and its audio was released in March 2010; Awara was released simultaneously with the Tamil version. In March 2010, the film's distribution rights were acquired by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies.^[1]

[edit]

Casting

In July 2008, actress Nayantara was signed for the female lead role in Paiyaa for a record salary of 1 crore. Speaking about the issue, the director admitted that she was one of his favourite actress and he liked her performance in Yaaradi Nee Mohini. He also quoted: "The way her career graph shot up is intriguing. Unlike others her career progressed in reverse gear. She paired up with the superstar during the early years of her career and started accepting roles with heroes of next generation." She also expressed her interest to work in the project.^[35] However, plans were made to trim the film's budget due to the economic recession,^[22] and discussions were held with Nayantara to reduce her salary. The talks resulted in failure and Nayantara left the project in December 2008.^[36] Later, she was accused of cheating the director by refusing to return an advance of 15 lakhs she had taken before commencement, after walking out of the film. The director filed a complaint with the Tamil Producer's council, which decided to ban the actress.^[37] Subsequently Trisha was reported to have bagged the role,^[38] before Tamannaah was finalized as the female lead, who was signed for 80 lakhs.^[39] Later in December 2008, Milind Soman, who had last appeared in Pachaikili Muthucharam, was signed up for the main antagonist's role, a Mumbai-based don,^[40] with other minor antagonists numbering up to 18.^[41]

[edit]

Filming

After Karthi had completed his film Aayirathil Oruvan, the principal photography for Paiyaa began on 24 December 2008 at a highway near Bangalore.^[42] Shooting carried on in and around Bangalore in the following weeks. The film's main portions were extensively shot across some major highways, where the story plays, whilst the climax was filmed inMumbai, where the journey would also end.^[6] The filming also took place in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.^[6]

In May 2009, a street fight was filmed near the Chembarambakkam Lake in Chennai.^[43] Later that month, a song ("Suthudhe Suthudhe Boomi"), choreographed by Sabeena Khan, was shot at Prasad Studios in Chennai, where a set had been erected by art director Rajeevan. The song was said to have featured computer graphics and visual effects with which forests and mountain ranges were created.^[44] In June 2009, after nearly six months of shooting, more than sixty-five percent of the project was completed, with a song and the climax sequences being the remaining parts to be filmed.^[6] A twenty-five day schedule was to be held in Mumbai and Pune,^[45] but the shooting got halted in July due to heavy rains.^[46] In October 2009, the final action scenes of the climax involving Karthi and Milind Soman were filmed in Mumbai and its suburbs in a ten day schedule,^[47] following which a rain song ("Adada Mazhaida"), featuring Karthi and Tamannaah, was shot at the Athirappilly waterfalls in Kerala.^[48]

[edit]

Soundtrack

Main article: Paiyaa (soundtrack)

The soundtrack for Paiyaa was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, collaborating with Linguswamy again after Sandakozhi (2005).^[49] The audio launch function was held on 22 November 2009 at the Satyam Cinemas, which was attended by many prominent film personalities; director Shankar released the soundtrack.^[31][50] The album originally features five songs with vocals by singers Karthik, Benny Dayal, Haricharan, Rahul Nambiar and composer Yuvan Shankar Raja himself. Three songs were reportedly composed and recorded in Singapore.^[49] The lyrics were provided by Na. Muthukumar. The album received highly positive reviews and responses from critics and audiences alike and the songs were considered to have played an important role for the film's success.^[51]

[edit]