Thirumalai

Thirumalai (Vijay) is a mechanic who lives with his friends in Puthupet, Chennai. On the occasion of 2002 New Year's Eve, he meets Swetha (Jyothika) and falls in love with her. He starts stalking her. But she beats him up with the help of her goons. After realizing his good nature, she reciprocates his feelings. This is opposed by her father Ashok (Avinash), who calls a thug named Arasu (Manoj K. Jayan), who has a reputation of being a big mafia crime boss in Chennai. Hence, Thirumalai fights with them and this makes Arasu realize all of his misbehavior. In the end, Arasu changes his mind about the match, and Ashok also realizes his mistakes. He accepts their love finally, and both reunite with each other.

The filming began in June 2002, when Vijay was simultaneously shooting for his previous action flick, Bagavathi (2002). Directing the film was debutant Ramana who had apprenticed with director R. K. Selvamani. The shooting was finally ended in August 2003. On 15 April 2003, Vijay stated that he had started dubbing for his portions of the film.

Namrata Shirodkar was chosen initially to play the female lead. But the director was not satisfied with her onscreen presence and she was replaced by Jyothika.[4]

A set resembling a market place with a mechanic shop in it was erected at Mohan Studios at a cost of about ₹ 50 lakh. Designed by art director Kathir, shooting took place there for 30 days. The film's shooting occurred in Chennai, Nellore and Vishakhapatnam, while the songs were filmed in Egypt and Switzerland.[5]

Music is composed by Vidyasagar.[6] The audio's album consisting of five songs, was released on 20 June 2003.[7] The audio was also well received among the audience. The recording of the songs took place during 2002–2003.

The film was released on 24 October 2003. The film was later dubbed into Hindi as Dum 2 in 2015 by Goldmines Telefilms with Vijay's voice dubbed by Chetanya Adib.[8] Despite the remade Telugu version, the original film was again dubbed in Telugu as Gharana Mogudu.[9]

Now running gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and stated "Yet another poor-boy rich-girl romance with parental opposition and mafia interference".[10] Chennai Online wrote "There's nothing fresh here that we haven't seen in an earlier Vijay film. The Vijay-Jyotika pair, after their successful combination in Khushi, was expected to re-create the same magic on screen. But it doesn't happen".[11] Thiraipadam wrote "Thirumalai sees director Ramana working within two big limitations. He has an age-old poor boy-rich girl love story in hand and has to contend with Vijay's mass image. Considering these restrictions, he has done a commendable job. By fashioning the hero's character a little differently and designing a fast screenplay that contains several stock situations but resolves them differently, he overcomes those negatives to deliver an entertaining feature".[12]

• Thirumalai on IMDb