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Ghilli ( ) is a 2004 Indian Tamil language-language Sports film action film directed by Dharani and produced by A. M. Rathnam. It is a remake of the Telugu language film Okkadu (2003), written and directed by Gunasekhar, with few changes made to the story. The film stars Vijay in the lead role, alongside Trisha and Prakash Raj (reprising his role from the original version). Ashish Vidyarthi, Dhamu, Mayilsamy, Janaki Sabesh, Nancy Jennifer, Nagendra Prasad, Ponnambalam and Pandu play supporting roles. The film is about a Kabaddi player, who goes to Madurai to participate in an exhibition match, but instead rescues a woman from a gang leader, who wants to marry her.
The soundtrack album and score were composed by Vidyasagar, while cinematography was handled by Gopinath and editing by V. T. Vijayan and B. Lenin. The dialogues for the film were written by Bharathan. The film was released on 16 April 2004 to positive reviews from critics. The film ran for more than 200 days at the box office and emerged as the highest-grossing Tamil film of 2004. Ghilli is considered to be one of the best films in Vijay's career, starting his acting trend from romance to action.
A re-mastered version in 4K was re-released worldwide in theatres on 20 April 2024 and received huge response among the audience. It has grossed around 26–32.50 crore during its re-release, becoming the highest grossing re-release in Indian cinema overtaking Titanic. This record was later broken by Hindi film Tumbbad in September 2024.
Muthupandi, a charismatic gang leader in Madurai, desires to marry a girl named Dhanalakshmi and kills Dhanalakshmi's older brother as he rejects Muthupandi's offer to marry her. Dhanalakshmi's second brother is also killed by Muthupandi when attempting to avenge his brother's murder. Dhanalakshmi's father gets terrified by Muthupandi's acts and asks Dhanalakshmi to leave Madurai and lead a peaceful life with her uncle in the United States, giving her money and her university certificates. While attempting to escape, Muthupandi catches Dhanalakshmi. However, while preparing for a Kabaddi match in Madurai, Velu sees Dhanalakshmi and rescues her by thrashing Muthupandi and taking her to Chennai.
Velu takes Dhanalakshmi to his house and hides her in his room without his family's knowledge. Meanwhile, Muthupandi and his father Home Minister Rajapandi asks Sivasubramaniam to search for Dhanalakshmi and the apparent kidnapper. Velu soon arranges a passport and flight tickets for Dhanalakshmi, who begins to fall for Velu. When Sivasubramaniam discovers that his son is the apparent kidnapper, Velu and Dhanalakshmi escape from Sivasubramaniam and hide in the lighthouse. Velu, along with his friends, reaches the airport in time for Dhanalakshmi's flight before their Kabaddi match against Punjabi kabaddi in the final match of the National League. Sivasubramaniam is enraged that Velu is playing in the Kabaddi match despite being a wanted criminal, where he goes to the stadium to arrest Velu, but decides to arrest him after the Kabaddi match upon Bhuvana's request.
Velu realises that he has fallen in love with Dhanalakshmi and begins to miss her, only to spot her in the stadium during the match. Velu's lack of focus in the game is quickly replaced by his best upon seeing Dhanalakshmi, which ultimately helps his team win the championship. Later, Velu is arrested by his father, but is then stopped by Muthupandi, who wants to fight Velu after having been incited by Dhanalakshmi to prove his worth. At first, Muthupandi subdues Velu but he regains his strength, defeats Muthupandi and embraces Dhanalakshmi. Muthupandi regains consciousness and tries to kill Velu with an aruval, but a floodlight, broken during the fight, touches the aruval, electrocuting Muthupandi to death.
The song "Appadi Podu" was later reused by Chakri as "Adaragottu" in the Telugu film Krishna (2008). The song was also adapted by P. A. Deepak, a music producer, as "Hum Na Tode" in the 2013 Hindi cinema movie Boss. The song is sung by Vishal Dadlani. Following the internet phenomenon of "Why This Kolaveri Di" in 2011, "Appadi Podu" was featured alongside "O Podu", "Nakka Mukka" and "Ringa Ringa" in a small collection of South Indian songs that are considered a "national rage" in India. The "Kabaddi" theme music from the soundtrack album was remixed by Anirudh Ravichander, for Master (2021).
Rediff wrote " Gilli portrays Vijay as a comic hero who battles his villains logically while his physical powers are exaggerated dramatically. Having said that, Gilli offers nothing less than sheer entertainment and an edgy thriller for the Tamil film industry, which is deprived of such films. Ananda Vikatan rated the film 45 out of 100 and wrote "With a little bit of Kabaddi, with a little bit of love, its an perfect action masala .. The film is full of speed like a raging Sivakasi rocket". Visual Dasan of Kalki gave a negative review, saying as the entire film revolves around a chase and melee between the villain and the hero till the very last scene, Ghilli is the epitome of back-scratching exaggeration for die-hard fans. Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "Dharani's 'Dhil' and 'Dhool' from his original screenplays were far better than this film. A film only for ardent Vijay fans". G. Ulaganathan of Deccan Herald' wrote "Gilli’s plot is puerile — little emotion, many fights and a few songs which don’t gell with the story. Vijay is almost like a superman, jumping and flying like Spiderman!".
The success of the film led the cast and crew to again collaborate with another similar action film titled Kuruvi (2008).
In Master, a Kabaddi scene uses music montage invoking Ghilli, while the other song from the film, "Arjunaru Villu" was used in Naai Sekar (2022).
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