Pokkiri

Pokkiri
Official Poster
Tamil	போக்கிரி
Directed by	Prabhu Deva
Produced by	S.Sathyaramamoorthy
Written by	V. Prabhakar (dialogues)
Screenplay by	Prabhu Deva Puri Jagannadh
Story by	Puri Jagannadh
Starring	Vijay Asin Prakash Raj Napoleon Mukesh Tiwari Vadivelu Nassar
Music by	Mani Sharma
Cinematography	Nirav Shah
Edited by	Kola Bhaskar
Production company	Kanagarathna Movies
Distributed by	Aascar Films
Release date	12 January 2007 (2007-01-12)
Running time	165 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Pokkiri (English: Mercenary) is a 2007 Indian Tamil language action gangster film directed by Prabhu Deva. It is a remake of the Telugu film Pokiri, and stars Vijay and Asin with Prakash Raj, Nassar, Vadivelu, Sriman and Napoleon playing supporting roles. Mumaith Khan and Prabhu Deva make guest appearances. Nirav Shah handled cinematography while Kola Bhaskar was the film's editor. Filming took place in India and Australia. The film was later dubbed into Hindi as Wanted Baaghi in 2013. The film was running more than 200 days at the box office. It was declared a blockbuster, and created new records in neighboring state Kerala for the first time for a Tamil film.

Plot

The city of Chennai is rife with the nefarious activities of land mafia. There are two rival gangs; one under Ali Bhai (Prakash Raj), who resides in Dubai and controls his India operations through his brothers Guru (Vincent Asokan) and Korattur Logu (Subbaraju) as well as his girlfriend Mona (Brinda Parekh); and another operated by a local goon Narasimhan (Anandaraj). They threaten builders and land owners into giving them protection money or property, through force, extortion or murder. Mohammed Maideen Khan (Napoleon) takes charge as the new Police Commissioner of Chennai and starts cracking down on crime.

Tamil (Vijay), a thug, is abducted by Logu and his henchmen. Tamil has taken a contract from Narasimhan to beat up Logu, which he does. However, Guru and Mona invite Tamil to join their gang. Tamil declines stating that he does not work for any gang, but is ready to do anything given enough money. Meanwhile, Tamil falls in love with Shruthi (Asin), when he visits his friend Saravanan's (Sriman) aerobics class, but she mistakes him for a thug. Shruthi, a college student, lives with her widowed mother Lakshmi (Sriranjani) and younger brother Pappu (Master Bharath). Body Soda (Vadivelu), a bogus kung fu master, lives above Shruthi's house and frequently, albeit comically and unsuccessfully, tries to convince her to marry him. Inspector Govindan (Mukesh Tiwari) is a corrupt police inspector in the colony where Tamil and Shruthi live and is Ali Bhai's payroll. He lusts for Shruthi and decides to make her his mistress, even after she rejects him multiple times.

Tamil's first assignment with Ali Bhai's gang is to kill a member of Narasimhan's gang. However, police show up at the spot where Tamil and the other gangsters are waiting. Tamil engages the cops long enough for the others to finish the task and flee. He also helps Shruthi escape from Govindan. She is impressed by his kindness, and a friendship soon blossoms between the two, leading to the development of unspoken romantic feelings for each other. When Shruthi tries to express her feelings to Tamil, they are attacked by members of Narasimhan's gang, whom Tamil finishes off. Shruthi is shocked to learn that Tamil is a gangster with no qualms about killing people.

Later, Govindan arranges for some thugs to pretend to rape Shruthi, so that no decent family will want to take her as their daughter-in-law, as a result of which with no other option, Shruthi and Lakshmi will accept his demands. Tamil learns of this and thrashes Govindan incognito. After much ado and mental anguish, Shruthi accepts Tamil's love.

Soon, Guru is found dead, presumably killed by Narasimhan in retaliation against the death of his gang members at the hands of Tamil earlier, which forces Ali Bhai to come to Chennai and kill Narasimhan. He also meets Tamil to discuss the killing of a minister by blowing up a school. Tamil disagrees with Ali Bhai's method as it would involve killing innocents including women and children. In the middle of their argument, the police raid the club and arrest Ali Bhai. His gang members retaliate by kidnapping Mohammed's daughter, drugging her, and creating a lewd video of her which they threaten to release to the media if Ali Bhai is not released, forcing the embattled commissioner to release Ali Bhai. In her drugged state, Mohammed's daughter also reveals that Mohammed had placed a mole in Ali Bhai's gang. The gang members find out that an IPS police officer by the name of Satyamoorthy, the son of a retired police inspector Shanmugavel (Nassar), has gone undercover to finish off the underworld mafia gangs and is now a part of their gang. Ali Bhai kills Satyamoorthy in front of Shanmugavel. However, it is revealed that the person who died was actually Saravanan, who was Shanmugavel's adopted son. Ali Bhai then kills Shanmugavel, hoping that the real Satyamoorthy would come to see his father's body and avenge his death. When the real Satyamoorthy actually turns up, everyone, especially Shruthi and Govindan, are shocked to see that he is revealed to be Tamil. Satyamoorthy (Tamil) has gone undercover by posing himself as a criminal. Shanmugavel also revealed that Satyamoorthy (Tamil) is the one who killed Guru and not Narasimhan. He killed Guru under the commissioner's direction.

After Shanmugavel and Saravanan's funerals, Satyamoorthy forces Govindan to call Ali Bhai to find out his location, which is Binny Mills. He goes there and starts to dispatch Ali Bhai's men one by one, rescuing the commissioner's daughter in the process. In a final confrontation, Satyamoorthy kills Ali Bhai by slashing his throat with a broken glass window, following which he utilizes his own gun and kills Govindan also.

Cast

Production

After his film Aadhi in January 2006, for nearly six months Vijay was listening to stories, but none had appealed; he was supposed to do a Tamil version of Dharani's Bangaram, until that film's failure made him look at other options.^[1] That's when he got to watch the Telugu Pokiri – he felt that it would work.^[2] After difficulty in finding directors, Prabhudeva was selected as director, directing his first film in Tamil after the failure of his Telugu film Pournami.^[3][4] The movie was launched on 6 July 2006.^[5] Vijay's father SAC conducted special puja at the Sri Arunachaleswarar Temple in Tiruvannamalai. On Saturday night, which was the full moon day, an auspicious occasion for the presiding deity there, he spent a full hour before the Lord seeking his blessings. He also prayed at the Sacred Church at Velankanni.^[6] Asin was selected, pairing with Vijay for the second time after Sivakasi.^[7]

The first day of shoot for the film was held at the new Pillayar Kovil at AVM studios, with various dignitaries gracing the occasion. Vijay's mother Shobha Chandrasekhar gave the clap for the first shot. The first scene shot was with Asin and Vijay, the lead pair in the film, in an elevator that was specially designed for the film.^[8]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack has 8 songs composed by Mani Sharma. Two of the songs from the original Telugu version were retained and remade in Tamil. The soundtrack also features a remix of the song "Vasantha Mullai" from Sarangadhara (1958).^[9][10]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Rediff.com Movies

Release

The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sun TV. The film was given a "U/A" certificate by the Indian Censor Board and released on 2007 at the festival of Pongal, alongside Ajith's Aalwar and Vishal's Thaamirabharani.^[11] The film grossed ₹6.1 crore in Tamil Nadu in opening week from 142 screens.^[12][13]

Remakes

The original Telugu film Pokiri, directed by Puri Jagannadh, was remade in several other languages and still found success in the respective regional cinemas. Pokkiri is the first remake. The second one was Wanted, the Hindi version in 2009. Both Pokkiri and Wanted were directed by Prabhu Deva. Prakash Raj reprises his role as the villain in both the remakes.^[22][23] After that, a Kannada version, Porki, directed by M. D. Sridhar, was released on 14 January 2010.^[24] Below is an actor map of the lead actors in the story of Pokiri and its remakes.

Legacy

A dialogue spoken by Vadivelu in the film, "Vada Poche" became very popular.^[25] The dialogue inspired a comedy show in Sun Music with same name. The dialogue also inspired a song sung by Velmurugan and Powerstar Srinivasan in Arya Surya (2013).^[26]

References

External links

• Pokkiri on IMDb