Pudhupettai

Pudhupettai
Poster
Directed by	Selvaraghavan
Produced by	K Muralidharan V Swaminathan G Venugopal
Screenplay by	Selvaraghavan
Story by	Selvaraghavan
Starring	Dhanush Sneha Sonia Agarwal
Music by	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Cinematography	Arvind Krishna
Edited by	Kola Bhaskar
Production company	Lakshmi Movie Makers
Release date	26 May 2006 (2006-05-26)
Running time	170 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	₹10 crore (equivalent to ₹23 crore or US$3.2 million in 2017)
Box office	₹15 crore (equivalent to ₹34 crore or US$4.8 million in 2017)

Pudhupettai (English: New Hood/Area) is a 2006 Indian Tamil neo noir gangster film written and directed by Selvaraghavan, starring his brother Dhanush in the lead, and Sneha and Sonia Agarwal in the lead female roles.^[1] The film, with music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography by Arvind Krishna, Selvaraghavan's usual crew members, released on 26 May 2006, receiving critical acclaim for the music.

Plot

The story is set in the backdrop of the slums of Pudhupettai in Chennai, as the title suggests, where a high school kid Kokki Kumar (Dhanush) sees his mother dead after he comes back from watching a film. His father, the murderer, is also planning to kill his son Kumar. Kumar sensing danger runs away from home. Homeless and with no food he resorts to begging until he is falsely arrested while standing by and watching a commotion on the street. In jail he befriends handymen of a local goon who take Kumar with them and give him petty jobs. In a confrontation with goons of another gang Kumar kills the brother of his enemy gang's head Murthy thus earning the respect of his gang and making enemies for himself both within his gang and outside. Krishnaveni (Sneha) is a prostitute who also works under Anbu. Kumar falls in love with Krishnaveni and challenge Anbu to release her. Anbu in return beats Krishnaveni and orders to kill Kumar. Kumar approaches Anbu and asks to pardon him but Anbu wonders if it would be possible cancel the order to kill Kumar. Kumar infuriated kills Anbu and approaches Thalaivar (Azhagam Perumal), leader of Opposition in the state. Thalaivar says if he could survive until the next day morning from Anbu's goon, who is seeking revenge, he would be bestowed with Anbu's area for business. Kumar survives and Thalaivar keeps him in place of Anbu.

Kumar grows even further in the underworld. He kills his father and his hench men. Murthy is stabbed by Kumar's men. Kumar joins Thalaivar's political party for immunity from police and arrests.

He then meets Selvi (Sonia Agarwal) on the eve of her wedding and falls in love with her and marries her forcibly during her wedding ceremony. Selvi is the sister of his favourite henchman who now becomes his sworn enemy and joins the enemy gang. Slowly Kumar starts accumulating serious enemies and eventually everyone start targeting for Kumar's head.

Finally, Kumar kills Murthy (a ruling party MLA and Kumar's sworn enemy) and is arrested, but the incumbent CM sees the high potential in Kumar and brings him out of prison and wipes his record. The CM gives Kumar his party's ticket from the dead leader's constituency in the by-election. Then it is told that Kumar won that election, became an MLA and 10 years later became the Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu. He owns large number of industries and educational institutions. Still his lost son is not found after an exhaustive search.

Cast

• Dhanush as Kokki Kumar
• Sneha as Krishnaveni
• Sonia Agarwal as Selvi (voice dubbed by Priya)
• Azhagam Perumal as Thamizhselvan
• Bala Singh as Anbu
• Vijay Sethupathi as Anbu's Henchman
• Murugadoss as Anbu's Henchman
• Prudhviraj as Murthy
• Boxer Deena as Anbu's Henchman
• Thennavan

Production

Selvaraghavan was originally supposed to make a film titled Oru Naal Oru Kanavu for Lakshmi Movie Makers but shelved the venture and began working with the same producers and the same star cast of Dhanush, Sonia Agarwal and Sneha on the gangster film Pudhupettai. The film was launched on 6 March 2005, with Aravind Krishna as cinematographer.^[2] Selva first approached Harris Jayaraj for the movie's music, but he refused as it is not his type of genre. ^[3] After his refusal, Selva finalised Yuvan Shankar Raja as the composer.

Selvaraghavan called the film "an experiment" and stated it had "one of the most complicated screenplays", while revealing he was more nervous about the final product than his previous ventures.^[4][5]

It was also the first Tamil film to be shot in Super 35 mm instead of the Cinemascope format, as well as the first to be released in digital format.^[6][7]

After the release of Pattiyal whose theme was the same as Pudupettai (dwelling on gangsters in Chennai), Selvaraghavan wanted to re-do many of the scenes to make them look fresh and new, hence the delay. The re-recording was done in Bangkok, with everyone involved working overtime.^[8]

Music

Yuvan Shankar Raja and Selvaraghavan renewed their association with this film, who had earlier teamed up to create highly successful and critically acclaimed music for the films Thulluvadho Ilamai (2001), Kaadhal Kondein (2004) and 7G Rainbow Colony (2005). All of the music, including the soundtrack and score, was composed in Thailand, where Yuvan Shankar Raja worked with the Chao Phraya Symphony Orchestra of Bangkok, which featured for the first time in a Tamil film.^[9] Several Traditional Thai musical instruments, including khim and southuu, were used for the orchestration.^[9]

The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and released on 15 December 2005.^[10] It features 10 tracks, of which six are songs and the remaining four are instrumental pieces which belong to the film score. The lyrics were written by Na Muthukumar, who had written the lyrics for Selvaraghavan's earlier film as well. However, this film remains to be the most recent collaboration of Muthukumar and Selvaraghavan as the latter had replaced Muthukumar with Vairamuthu for his future projects.

Actor Kamal Haasan sang a song, although he didn't act in the film. The film's lead actor Dhanush rendered a rap song as well.

Every track's title reflects its theme.

Yuvan Shankar Raja received rave reviews for both the songs and the film score, which is considered to be one of his best works. The songs were hailed as "brilliant", "innovative", and even "a musical milestone".^{[11][12][13][14]} The music gained immense popularity among the masses, especially among the youth, topping the Tamil music charts in the following weeks.^[15]

Release

Legacy

Dhanush made a cameo appearance in 2015 film Vai Raja Vai directed by his wife Aishwarya, reprising the role of Kokki Kumar.^[21] The dialogues "Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru" (You have to work like fire, Kumar) and "Kadavul Irukaan Kumaru" (God is there, Kumar) inspired the 2013 and 2016 film of the same name.^[22][23]

References

External links

• Pudhupettai on IMDb