Pichaikkaran

Pichaikkaran
Poster
Directed by	Sasi
Produced by	Fatima Vijay Antony
Written by	Sasi
Starring	Vijay Antony Satna Titus
Music by	Vijay Antony
Cinematography	Prasanna Kumar
Edited by	Veera Senthil Raj
Production company	Vijay Antony Film Corporation
Distributed by	KR films
Release date	4 March 2016 (2016-03-04)
Running time	130 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Box office	est. ₹34 crore[1]

Pichaikkaran (English: Beggar) is a 2016 Indian Tamil action thriller film directed by Sasi, starring Vijay Antony in the lead role.^[2][3][4] The film released on 4 March 2016. The Telugu dubbed version was titled as Bichagadu and was released on 13 May 2016.^[5] In 2017, the film was dubbed into Hindi as Roadside Rowdy.^[6] The film became a big success at the box office. The movie was remade in Odia as Baby starring Anubhav Mohanty, in Marathi as Bhikari starring Swapnil Joshi and in Kannada as Amma I Love You starring Chiranjeevi Sarja.^[7]

Plot

Arul Selvakumar (Vijay Antony) is a rich businessman based out of Palladam, Tirupur district. His mother Bhuvaneshwari (Dheepa Ramanujam) is the person behind the growth of their textile business following her husband’s early death. Avinashi (Muthuraman) is her brother-in-law who is money minded and has plans to grab Arul’s properties. Arul returns from abroad after graduation and takes charge of all the business responsibilities from his mother. In the meantime, Bhuvaneshwari meets with an accident in the factory and falls into a coma with all the efforts taken by Arul goes in vain to cure her. Finally, Arul meets a Swamiji who suggests that Arul should lead a life of a beggar for 48 days and this would help his mother to recover. He also says that Arul should never reveal this to anyone.

Arul accepts and goes to Chennai to beg without informing any one and only his friend Rajesh (Bagavathi Perumal) knows the truth as he has been asked to look after the business until he comes back. Arul sits along with a few other beggars in front of a temple and starts begging. He meets Magizhini (Satna Titus) and develops affection seeing her good nature. Actually Arul and his mother had initially decided to approach Magizhini for an alliance through a matrimonial site. Magizhini also encounters Arul in a few situations and likes his character not knowing that he is a beggar. Avinashi tries to take over Arul’s businesses as both Arul and his mother are unavailable now. Magizhini finds out that Arul is a beggar and gets angry thinking Arul has cheated her but still could not avoid him as she is impressed more by his good nature. One day Magizhini’s mother sees Arul’s photo in her laptop and says that he is a rich businessman and also she had sent her photos to him through matrimony website a few months back. Magizhini is shocked hearing this and goes to meet Arul where she overhears the conversation between Arul and Rajesh which makes her realise Arul’s life as a beggar is to save his mother and she is impressed a lot seeing his good nature. Magizhini decides not to disturb Arul until his life as a beggar is complete.

Meanwhile, there is a group of doctors who manage a mental health centre but they use the patients admitted in the hospital for medical experiments and Arul gets to know this with the help of a beggar who stays there pretending as a mentally challenged girl. Knowing this, the doctors approach a gang asking them to murder Arul. Arul manages to escape from the gang. On the last day as a beggar, Arul is spotted by Avinashi and he tries to kill him but accidentally, Magizhini gets stabbed on her neck and is admitted to hospital. But Arul is unable to pay the hospital expenses as his last day as a beggar is not yet complete. His beggar friends come up with some money to help Arul. Avinashi is arrested by police.

Arul gets back after 48 days along with Rajesh to visit his mother and comes to know that there is no improvement in her health. Arul holds his mother’s hands and begs to live for long. Suddenly he sees his mother’s hands moving and holding his hand. After six months, his mother is recovered and both Arul and Magizhini get married to each other. A beggar begs to Arul in front of a temple but Arul gets busy with a phone call not noticing the beggar. Arul’s mother gives money to the beggar and informs Arul that life of a beggar is so pathetic and we should never hurt them. She also says that people like us cannot lead a beggar’s lifestyle even a single day. Arul apologises for not noticing the beggar to his mother and the film ends there signalling that Arul’s mother never came to know about her son’s struggle as a beggar to bring her back to normal life. Magizhini feels very proud about her husband Arul.

Cast

• Vijay Antony as Arul
• Satna Titus as Magizhini (Voice dubbed by Raveena Ravi)
• Bagavathi Perumal as Rajesh
• Muthuraman as Arul's uncle
• Dheepa Ramanujam as Bhuvaneshwari Arul's Mother
• Mohan Raman as the Audi car owner

Production

Sasi began the production of Pichaikkaran in October 2014, and signed on Vijay Antony to feature in the lead role. The pair had earlier worked together in Dishyum (2006), in which Vijay Antony had composed the film's music.^[3] The team shot a schedule in Pollachi on Everwin spinning mills near Achipatty village in January 2015, before moving to Puducherry by June 2015.^[8][9]

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack album and background score were composed by Vijay Antony. The soundtrack album consist of seven tracks. The album was released on 07 Jan 2016. Behindwoods rated the album 2.25 out of 5 and noted that "Overall a pretty decent album but it does have a couple of thumping numbers!".^[10] One of the songs created controversy due to lyrics which hurted the doctors.^[11]

Release

The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sun TV.^[12]

Critical reception

Rediff wrote "Sasi’s Pichaikkaran may have overdosed on action and sentiment but the director manages to portray life from the other side. The humiliation and pain of people we meet and choose to ignore on a daily basis stays with you".^[13]

Hindustan Times wrote "One of the biggest drawbacks of many Indian movies is its lethargic attitude towards perfecting a script -- not drawing the line from one point to another with any fair degree of conviction. Pichaikkaran thus ends up as a beggar begging for credibility".^[14]

Moviecrow wrote "This Pichaikkaran is neither poor to beg nor rich to offer".^[15]

Behindwoods gave it a 2.25/5 saying that "Excessive exaggerations and lack of depth in the dealing make Pichaikkaran not an easy affair".^[16]

Indiaglitz gave it a 2.8/5 saying that "[It] makes the right impact as a wholesome entertainer with emotional scenes as his strong base".^[17]

Box office

The movie has raked in 15 Crores from the Tamil version and 18 crores from the Telugu version which makes the worldwide gross collection to 40 Crores.^[1]

References

External links

• Pichaikkaran on IMDb