Velayudham is a 2011 Tamil action masala thriller film
Plot
The film opens up in
Pakistan with a blind folded person (
Vineet Kumar) being dragged by a few terrorists. He is brought to the leader of the gang Musafir Ibrahim (
Abhimanyu Singh) and is identified as Ulaganathan, the Home Minister of Tamil Nadu. Further plans are revealed when the gang strikes a hefty deal with him for planting a series of bombs in
Chennai. Soon, a bomb explodes in a bus in Chennai, killing many innocent people. A group of three journalists, including Bharathi (
Genelia D'Souza), commit to eradicating terrorism and other social ills in the country after completing their Journalism course. One night, Bharathi and her two friends secretly film the illegal activities like creation of explosives and women trafficking happening in a secluded house. However, the journalists' presence is detected and their escape attempt results in the deaths of both her friends and injury to Bharathi. But after the attack on Bharathi and her friends, the goons' vehicle explodes due to a small mishap when a matchstick falls over petrol packets stored in the vehicle. Bharathi, already stabbed by one of the goons, comes up with a new idea to eradicate terrorism by creating a fictional character called Velayudham, and writes a note that he wants to clean up the city of bad guys and that he will stop the next bomb from hurting anyone before falling unconscious.
Menawhile, the real Velayudham a.k.a. Velu (Vijay) is a milk vendor in a village called Pavunoor. He has a sister Kaveri (Saranya Mohan) whom he loves dearly and a cousin Vaidehi (Hansika Motwani) who is crazy about him. Though the brother-sister duo create a lot of trouble for the villagers, they are still adored by them. They, along with a couple of village friends, go to Chennai to collect money from a chit fund for his sister's marriage. At the Chennai Egmore railway station, a petty thief Speedu (Santhanam) steals the money. Velu chases him on a bike which was parked on the railway station platform, eventually getting back the money. Unknown to him, the bike had a bomb planted on it, which explodes within seconds of him getting down from the bike and getting back his money, thus inadvertently thwarting a terror attack. Within the next couple of days, he inadvertently prevents more bomb blasts and helps catch terrorists, becoming a sensation over time. He even manages to save Bharathi in one of the incidents.
Bharathi soon realises that Velu is the guy who has been accidentally doing the work of Velayudham. Bharathi meets him, explains and asks him to become the fictional character, however he refuses. Later, Velu goes to draw cash from the chit fund but the company cheats him off his money. Outside the chit fund company, the people who were cheated by the company protest, vowing that Velayudham will come as their saviour. Velu seeing this decides to take upon the avatar of Velayudham and starts to eradicate the evils that pertains within the society such as corruption, prostitution, terrorism etc. In time, Bharathi falls in love with Velu, which he does not return as he is in love with Vaidehi.
Trouble however lurks in the form of Musafir. He plans a terrorist attack on a chemical factory. However, Velu thwarts these plans and gains the support of Assistant Commissioner Feroz Khan (Sayaji Shinde), who was initially sceptical of Velayudham.
Soon, Velu, Speedu and Bharathi come to Pavunoor for Kaveri's marriage. Unknown to them, one of the terrorists involved in the failed terrorist attack on the chemical factory had followed them to the village to take revenge on Velu. Feroz Khan tries to warn Velu about this, but is murdered by the police commissioner, who is Ulaganathan's right hand man. The terrorist plants a bomb in Velu's house and only Kaveri detects it, but the bomb explodes before she can get rid of it, killing her. In revenge, Velu returns to Chennai and kills Musafir, who is to be revealed as Velayudham by Ulaganathan, in a gruelling encounter at the Nehru Stadium, exposes Ulaganathan's misdeeds and finally reveals himself as Velayudham to the world.
Cast
-
Vijay as Velayudham (Velu), the protagonist
-
Genelia D'Souza as Bharathi, a journalist who comes up with the idea of Velayudham
-
Hansika Motwani as Vaidhyalakshmi (Vaidegi), Velu's love interest
-
Santhanam as Speed, a petty thief
-
Soori as Abdullah, Velu's friend
-
Saranya Mohan as Kaveri, Velu's sister
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Abhimanyu Singh as Musafir Ibrahim, the main antagonist
-
Vineet Kumar as Ulaganathan, the Home Minister of Tamil Nadu, the other antagonist
-
Pandi as Pandi
-
Raaghav as Jai
-
M. S. Bhaskar as Vaidehi's father
-
Sayaji Shinde as Asst.Commissioner Mhd. Feroz Khan, a critic of Velayudham who later starts supporting him
-
Pandiarajan as Head Constable, a supporter of Velayudham
-
Vincent Asokan as Ulaganathan's brother
-
Ajay as Ulaganathan's partner
-
Rajendran as a Local Goon
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Manivannan as Rathnavelu, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
-
Ilavarasu as a poor man
-
Veera Samar as Hari, Bharathi's friend
-
T. P. Gajendran as a Travelling Ticket Examiner
-
Kadhal Dhandapani as Nattamai
-
Swaminathan as Maama
-
Singamuthu as Speed's father
-
Vaiyapuri as Speed's brother
-
Meenal as one of the girls abducted by thugs
-
Crane Manohar as Theatre Operator
-
Krishnamoorthy as a Villager
-
Shobana
Production
Casting
The film was launched on July 15, 2010 at the
Madras University campus.
who had acted opposite Vijay in
Sachein was chosen for the role of a journalist,
and
Hansika Motwani was chosen to portray Vijay's love interest,
while
Saranya Mohan would play sister to Vijay's character.
Art director Veera Samar also was roped in to play a journalist.
While
Santhanam and
M. S. Baskar were chosen to play the comedy lead in the film,
, Vineetkumar and Abhimanyu Singh were selected to play negative roles.
Tom Delmar, who had worked as a stunt coordinator in several Hollywood films, joined the crew to choreograph the stunts in the film.
Due to his commitment to
Velayudham, Vijay almost lost his role in
S. Shankar's
Nanban. He had walked out of
Nanban, since the two films demanded two completely different looks,
however, he joined the film later as the scenes involving the protagonist were reserved to be shot later.
Filming
Filming was carried out primarily at three locations, Southern Tamil Nadu,
Kerala and the last schedule in
Chennai.
A song sequence choreographed by Shobi that was originally to be shot in
Switzerland was canned in
Srinagar,
Jammu and Kashmir,
with Genelia and Hansika filming alongside Vijay.
Tom Delmar, the stunt co-ordinator of projects such as Braveheart, has been behind the shooting of an extremely tricky train sequence for Velayudham. It has been shot on a train moving on a bridge Vijay performed the very risky sequence coolly.The Director said "A slight miss and the actor could fall 100 feet below! “A very risky sequence, but Vijay did it coolly. My heart was in my mouth when it was being filmed,”.This stunt has been taken in the location Rayagada in Orissa.
while another fight sequence was filmed at
Golkonda fort,
Hyderabad.
The audiography was done by
M. R. Rajakrishnan and film's dubbing was done in Four Frames Recording Studio in Chennai.
Influences
The film has been widely reported to be a remake of the 2000 Telugu film
Azad that starred
Soundarya as a journalist and
Akkineni Nagarjuna as a villager, incidentally the roles essayed by Genelia and Vijay, respectively.
However, director
M. Raja claimed that it was not a remake but his own story.
He later admitted that
Azad served as the inspiration and that he had penned a new screenplay.
[ Vijay had signed up to appear in a village action story titled Velan in 2001 to be directed by Thirupathisamy, the director of Azad, which was postponed indefinitely after the death of the director.]
Soundtrack
The soundtrack is scored by Vijay Antony. The audio right was bought by Sony Music for huge amount.
The audio launch was held in Madurai on August 28.
Critical response
The soundtrack received mixed to positive reviews, with critics recommending the album for Vijay's fans. Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff gave it 2 out of 5 stating "Vijay Antony plays it safe mostly, with the result that there's nothing new."
Release
The satellite rights of the film were bagged by Jaya TV for a price of 4 crore.
Velayudham released on 26 October 2011, during the Deepavali festival.[ As per overseas distributor Ayngaran International, the film released in 17 theatres in UK.]
Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV), a pro-Kannada outfit, requested all the theatres in the state not to screen any non-Kannada movie on the occasion of Kannada Rajyaotsava Day but some of the cinema halls did not take their plea seriously, which irked the KRV activists to show their anger against the Tamil film. However, the theatre authorities realised that the situation might reach out of control and hence, they agreed to cancel all the shows of the day. The film was distributed by producer K Manju in Karnataka.
The film's theatrical distribution rights were sold for 40 crore.
Reception
The film opened up to mixed to positive reviews reviews from critics. Sify called it a "paisa vassol film", stating that the film was a "perfect outing with family, but far too long in length".
Box office
India
Velayudham took a big opening on Diwali day.[ The total collections in Chennai amounted to 7.75 crore in seven weeks.]
Overseas
Velayudham was a relatively high grosser in Europe and North America, with Taran Adarsh, a Bollywood film critic highlighting that the film was "rocking internationally".
Accolades
Velayudham was honored with the Best Film Award at V4 Entertainment Awards 2011.[ Dhanush and Anjali – Best Actor and Actress][ Dhanush and Anjali won the best awards][ சிறந்த நடிகர் – நடிகைகள்,தனுஷ் – அஞ்சலிக்கு விருது!!] Velayudham won the honours in the Best Musician category too.[ Best of Kollywood 2011: Vijay beats Ajith, Surya, Vikram] Actor Vijay received Edison Award for Best Actor and Superstar Rajini Award in the year 2012 for Velayudham.
External links
