2005 film by Perarasu
Thirupaachi is a 2005 Indian Tamil-language action film directed by Perarasu and produced by R. B. Choudary under Super Good Films. The film stars Vijay, Trisha and Mallika in the lead roles, while Livingston, Pasupathy, Benjamin, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Vaiyapuri and Manoj K. Jayan appear in supporting roles.[1] The film featured scores composed by Dhina, who also jointly composed one song each with Devi Sri Prasad and Mani Sharma.
Thirupaachi was released on 14 January 2005. The film ran for 175 days in theatres and was declared a blockbuster.[2][3][4][5] It was remade in Kannada as Thangigagi and in Telugu as Annavaram.
Plot
Sivagiri alias Giri is a bladesmith in a remote village near Thirupaachi. He has a lovable sister named Karpagam. He runs into hilarious incidents while searching locally for a groom for his sister. Giri tells his friend Kannapan that he wants his sister to be in a good city after her marriage. Giri also nods his acceptance when a city guy proposes to Karpagam. He accompanies the newlyweds to Chennai and finds a girl named Subha welcoming them, and they both fall in love after initial mishaps. On a trip to Chennai, Giri rescues a court witness from Pattasu Balu, a don dominating Central Chennai. He also learns of a local don, Pan Parag Ravi, who controls North Chennai and troubles Karpagam's husband's canteen business.
In an altercation in a cinema theatre, Kannappan gets murdered by a thug, Saniyan Sagadai, who dominates South Chennai. Karpagam's husband told Giri to leave Chennai for his sister to be happy. After Kannapan's funeral, Giri leaves his hometown, stating Giri got a job in a cloth manufacturing company in Erode. In reality, he comes with a mission in Chennai. Giri warns Sagadai, stating that he will kill the latter. He also calls ACP Raj Guru and warns him that he will kill all the dons of Chennai as the police department fails in their duty. Later, Giri's police friend Inspector Veluchamy learns of this. Giri challenges Veluchamy that Veluchamy will give up his mission if the latter keeps any one thug of Chennai in jail for a single day. Veluchamy fails in his mission and loses his son, as Balu killed him. This harsh lesson makes Veluchamy help Giri.
Thus, Veluchamy lists the entire mafia network of Chennai to Giri by providing the specification of who leads the various areas. Giri writes their names on paper and randomly chooses Balu. He kills Balu, stating that he is not killing but instead 'clearing'. One day, Subha meets Giri in a temple and finds he is not working in any cloth manufacturing company. Giri makes Subha believe that he is working in a travel company. Thus, Giri promises Subha that he should visit her often and spend time with her. Later on, Giri provokes Ravi to kill his brother by sticking out funeral posters of Ravi and making him think that his brother is the person who is killing people all over Chennai. After the death of Ravi's brother, Ravi realises his brother is not the one who sticks the funeral posters, so he hides in a politician's house to be away and safe from the hands of Giri. Ravi damages the politician’s car and home and the politician makes the police believe that someone has attacked his house. The police decide to provide security for the politician. Ravi feels happy since Giri can't come to his place by fooling all these inspectors and killing him. Veluchamy soon discovers that Ravi is hiding in the politician's place. Giri wants Veluchamy to disband police protection.
Veluchamy refuses because that is the police's responsibility to protect. He can only inform Giri, who has to kill Ravi. Later, Giri brings a group of people who rally due to losing their money to a fraudulent financier hiding in the politician's place. With the rally, Giri enters Ravi's fort and kills him. Raj inquires about the people involved in the rally regarding the identity of Giri. However, nobody wants to inform anything because they think Giri is doing the police's job while the police do nothing and wait for their salary. Raj's daughter is willing to die rather than reveal Giri's identity because Giri rescued her from Balu. Later on, Giri decides to kill Sagadai and warns him. So Sagadai seeks the protection of a mass group of thugs from Chennai. Giri uses this as a chance to destroy the entire mafia gang of Chennai. He ignites a war between the police group and the mafia gang in a very diplomatic manner.
Giri disguises himself as a police inspector and enters Sagadai's fort. Veluchamy helps Giri in his mission by hurting himself. Raj orders his squad to hit the thugs. Giri confronts a thug, and forces him to wear a police uniform. After that, Giri shoots and kills the thug and throws him out of the window. Thinking that one of his fellow officers is dead, Raj orders to open fire. The police kill all the thugs, but when they check the dead 'police officer', they discover Giri's trick and run upstairs to find him. However, Giri stabbed Sagadai (taking revenge for his friend Kannapan's death) and threw him to the ground right before the new year. Subha welcomes Giri, Karpagam, and her husband after returning home. Giri gives Subha the necklace he is wearing, and they unite in the end.
Production
Development
Thirupaachi was announced in 2004 and marked the directorial debut of Perarasu who earlier assisted Rama Narayanan and N. Maharajan.[6][7][8] Thirupaachi was Vijay's 40th film and fifth collaboration with Supergood Films.[9] The film was initially titled Girivalam.[10]
Casting
Jyothika was considered for lead role before finalising Trisha, who earlier paired with Vijay in Ghilli. She along with actress Mallika in supporting role was selected for the film.[4] Actor Vikram's father Vinodraj was selected to play Vijay's father.[11] Chaya Singh was roped in for special appearance.
Filming
Despite planning to shoot in Thirupachi, a village near Madurai – Ramanathapuram border, Perarasu opted against to shoot there as it may create traffic problems instead the village portions were shot in Karaikudi.[12]
A set resembling Ayyanar temple with a 90-foot statue, surrounded by 200 mud horse costing about ₹3 million was designed by M. Prabhakar in a village near Karaikudi, a song was shot with about 1,500 junior artistes in that set and it took a week to complete the song. The climax for the film was shot in Vasan House, Chennai where a huge crowd of junior artistes taking part each day of the two weeks it took to complete the scene. Other filming locations were Visakhapatnam, Arakkuveli, with a song shot in South Africa.[13]
Music
The soundtrack has seven songs, five songs were composed by Dhina, while Devi Sri Prasad (Kattu Kattu) and Mani Sharma (Kannum Kannumthan) had composed one song respectively. For the song "Kattu Kattu", Devi Sri Prasad reused music from the song "Pattu Pattu", which he produced from the movie Shankar Dada M.B.B.S.
For the song, "Kannum Kannumthan", the latter had reused music from the song "Chitti Nadumune", which he himself produced for the Telugu film Gudumba Shankar.[citation needed]
The lyrics for all the songs were penned by Perarasu.
| Song |
Artist(s) |
Song video performance by |
Length |
Composer
|
| "Kattu Kattu" |
Manikka Vinayagam, Sumangali |
Vijay, Trisha |
5:12 |
Devi Sri Prasad
|
| "Kannum Kannumthan" |
Harish Raghavendra, Uma Ramanan, Premji Amaren |
Vijay, Trisha |
5:56 |
Mani Sharma
|
| "Appan Panna" |
Pushpavanam Kuppusamy, Anuradha Sriram |
Vijay, Trisha |
4:48 |
Dhina
|
| "Nee Entha Ooru" |
Tippu |
Vijay |
4:48 |
Dhina
|
| "Kumbida Pona Deivam" |
Shankar Mahadevan, Malathy Lakshman |
Vijay, Chaya Singh, Trisha, Mallika |
4:12 |
Dhina
|
| "Enna Thavam" |
Dhina, Swarnalatha |
Vijay, Mallika |
2:15 |
Dhina
|
| "Avichu Vecha" |
Manikka Vinayagam |
Vijay, Mallika |
1:11 |
Dhina
|
Release
Thirupaachi was released with 207 prints on 14 January 2005, coinciding with Pongal, and other releases like Ayya, Iyer IPS, Aayudham and Devathaiyai Kanden.[14] After the success of Thirupaachi, A. M. Rathnam called Perarasu to make Sivakasi with Vijay re-uniting with him for second time.[15][16]
Reception
Critical response
Behindwoods wrote "Another tailor-made role for Vijay, Thirupaachi scores with its impressive screenplay."[17] Indiaglitz wrote "Perarasu in his debut venture has relied on Vijay's action-hero image. It is a film for Vijay's fans who love their star to dance with energy, fight with enthusiasm and love with mischief."[18] Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "Perarasu tries to make slight variations within the parameters of this scenario, weaving in the right dose of humour, action and sentiment and succeeds in presenting a film that is fast-paced and engaging from the opening to the final scene."[19] Sify wrote "Vijay has stuck to his regular formula – five songs, flying fights, crass comedy, punchline dialogues, dream songs in foreign locales and corny sentiments. So if you have seen earlier films of the superstar you may strive hard to find anything new in Thirupaachi, which is old wine served in a new bottle, with a different label.[20] Ananda Vikatan rated the film 40 out of 100.[21] Visual Dasan of Kalki called Thirupaachi not only the angry brother, but also the masala king.[22]
Box office
The film was released on Pongal alongside Ayya and Devathayai Kanden. The film opened to packed houses with 80 percent occupancy from Chennai and other districts of the state.[23] After taking a fantastic opening for the first week, the film took a slight fall in crowd for the second week.[24] The film completed 175-day theatrical run at Tamil Nadu.[25]
Controversy
After the release of Thirupaachi, Super Good Films were sued by Godrej Sara Lee Ltd. for "defamatory, prejudicial, offensive and slanderous" use of the mosquito spray HIT as they are the trademark owners. Godrej eventually won the case and obtained an "order of permanent injunction and damages" worth ₹500,000 from Super Good Films.[26][27]
