Kaavalan

Kaavalan
File:Kaavalan Vijay Asin Poster.jpg
Directed by	Siddique
Produced by	C.Romesh Babu
Written by	Siddique
Screenplay by	Siddique
Starring	Vijay Asin Rajkiran Mithra Kurian Vadivelu Roja Selvamani
Music by	Vidyasagar
Cinematography	N. K. Ekambaram
Edited by	Gowri Shankar
Production company	Ekaveera Creations
Distributed by	Cinema Paradise
Release dates	15 January 2011 (2011-01-15)
Running time	153 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	₹18 (27¢ US)
Box office	₹45 (67¢ US)

Kaavalan (English: Bodyguard) is a 2011 Tamil romantic movie and directed by Siddique, starring Vijay and Asin in the lead roles. The film is a remake of Siddique's previous Malayalam film Bodyguard. It features Rajkiran, Mithra Kurian, Roja and Vadivelu in supporting roles with musical score composed by Vidyasagar. The film's principal shoot commenced in April 2010 and was completed by November 2010. The Movie was selected to be screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival out of many projects submitted by India. The Songs Composed by Vidyasagar were topping the charts.The film had a successful 100 days theatrical run at many Centres. Its was later dubbed in Hindi as Main Hoon Bodyguard.

Plot

Bhoominathan (Vijay) idolises Muthuramalingam (Rajkiran) and at the request of his parents, accepts to work for the latter as his bodyguard. There enters Muthuramalingam's rival, who has lost his daughter since she committed suicide, the reason being rejection by Muthuramalingam's son. While Bhoominathan protects Muthuramalingam, his rival threatens the life of his daughter Meera (Asin). Bhoominathan is sent to college along with Meera and her friend Madhu (Mithra Kurian) to protect them from the threat. Meera tries to distance herself from Bhoominathan by calling him from a private number; Bhoominathan falls in love with the girl without knowing that it is Meera herself. At one point, Meera too feels herself becoming attracted to Bhoominathan and expresses her desire to meet him in person. However, due to circumstances they are not able to accomplish this until at the climax when she tells Bhoominathan to run away with her and to meet at a railway station. Bhoominathan agrees, unaware it is Meera. However through certain means,Muthuramalingam comes to think that Bhoominathan and Meera are going to run away. In order to save Bhoominathan's life from the anger of Muthuramalingam, Meera lies that the lover is not her and that Bhoominathan is meeting another girl at the train station. Muthuramalingam lets Bhoominathan leave as he was desperate to meet his 'lover' at the station. The story moves on to few years later where Bhoominathan and his son returning to Meera's village, with the son keeping away a diary written to him by his mum. At Meera's house, Meera's father was ill and Meera appeared from her room unmarried that shocked Bhoominathan as he felt the man who would marry Meera would be the luckiest man on earth. The son continues to read the diary later in the night where the remaining of the story reveals. Meera's father lets Bhoominathan go but tells his henchmen to kill Bhoominathan if the girl he claims to meet does not appear. Terrified that Bhoomi would be killed, Meera sends her friend, Madhu, to the station and tells her to tell Bhoominathan that she is the lover and that she won't be able to make it to the station. Madhu, seeing Bhoominathan, tries to tell him that it was Meera but, Muthuramalingam's henchman appeared to be behind Bhoomi. Madhu pretends that she was his lover whilst the henchman was watching. But the hug from Bhoominathan made Madhu to backstab her friend. Meera called Madhu's phone but Madhu killed Meera's call, switched the phone off and threw it outside the train. Her wicked smile indicated that she now wanted Meera out of their life, so she settled in another country. But God works in mysterious ways. Madhu's life was short-lived. She felt it's God way of punishing her and therefore wanted her son to know the truth. When Bhoominathan and the son leaves the next day, the son asks Meera if he can call her 'amma' and she says yes. And he then asks his 'mum' to follow them back. Bhoominathan gets angry at his son for saying something so blunt and rude. But Muthuramalingam begs Bhoominathan to take Meera as his wife. So they go onto the train together but the son runs away before leaving and throws the diary into a trashcan nearby. Bhoominathan finds the diary and realises soon that his real lover, the girl who had waited for him for so many years faithfully, was Meera. And in the train he shows that he has accepted her full-heartedly.

Cast

• Vijay as Bhoominathan (Bhoomi)
• Asin as Meera
• Rajkiran as Muthuramalingam
• Mithra Kurian as Madhu
• Vadivelu as Ammavasai
• Roja as Devika
• Livingston as college principal
• Mahadevan as Devarajan
• Krishna Kumar as Karthik
• Neepa as Poongodi
• Nizhalgal Ravi as Parthasarathy
• Yuvashree as Bhoominathan's mother
• M. S. Bhaskar Maadhu's father
• Madhan Bob as college lecturer
• Guinnes Pakru as Meera's friend and classmate
• Sharmilee as hostel warden

Character map of remakes

The original Malayalam film Bodyguard is being remade in Hindi and Telugu. The Telugu version is being directed by Gopichand Malineli while all the other three versions are directed by Siddique himself. Below is a character map of the lead characters in the story of Bodyguard and its remakes. Along with Remake, this movie was also dubbed in Hindi as Main Hoon Bodyguard.

Bodyguard (Malayalam; 2010)	Kaavalan (Tamil; 2011)	Bodyguard (Hindi; 2011)	Bodyguard (Kannada; 2011)	Bodyguard (Telugu; 2012)	Bodyguard (Bengali)
Jayakrishnan (Dileep)	Bhoominathan (Vijay)	Lovely Singh (Salman Khan)	Jayakrishna (Jaggesh)	Venkatadri (Venkatesh)	(Shakib Khan)
Ammu (Nayanthara)	Meera (Asin)	Divya (Kareena Kapoor)	Ammu (Daisy Shah)	Keerthi (Trisha Krishnan)	(Nipun)
Sethulakshmi (Mithra Kurian)	Maadhu (Mithra Kurian)	Maya (Hazel Keech)	Poorna (Spoorthi)	Swathi (Saloni Aswani)
Ashokettan (Thiagarajan)	Muthuramalingam (Rajkiran)	Sartaj Rana (Raj Babbar)	Ashokanna (Gurudut)	Varadarajula Naidu (Prakash Raj)

Production

Development

Siddique had first narrated the script of bodyguard to Vijay,As Vijay had prior commitments then,He suggested him to make this movie first in Malayalam as Bodyguard.Bodyguard became an average grosser in Malayalam.He later announced his decision to remake the film with enhancements in the script to better suite the Tamil audience. The film was initially referred to as Kaavalkaaran, which transliterally means "bodyguard" in Tamil. After rumours of the title being changed to Kaaval Kaadhal,' the film was officially confirmed to be titled as Kaavalan in August 2010. The reason for the name confusion and its eventual permanent change was due to the complications in obtaining the rights to the title of Kavalkaran from M. G. Ramachandran's producers. They refused to sell the title to Vijay, leading to the rechristening of the title to Kaavalan.

Casting

With the announcement of the remake, Siddique had finalised Vijay to play the lead role, reminiscent to their previous venture Friends (2001), which was also a remake of Siddique's own Malayalam film. Asin Thottumkal was signed up to pair with Vijay for the third time after their previous pairings in Sivakasi (2005) and Pokkiri (2007), also giving Asin a comeback in Tamil cinema after her last appearance in Dasavathaaram (2008). Vadivelu, Rajkiran, and Roja Selvamani were also signed up for supporting characters. The film's principal shoot began in April at Kumbakonam.

Filming

An incident occurred on sets in April, where Asin, her father, and her make up assistants had fainted in their caravan after being exposed to a gas leak. They were treated in hospital the same day and were eventually discharged. The second shoot schedule occurred in Vellore. Vijay and Asin, along with director Siddique and rest of crew had taken part in the shooting at the Vellore Institute of Technology. A song was shot at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Soundtrack

Kaavalan
File:Kaavalan Vijay Asin Poster.jpg
Soundtrack album by Vidyasagar
Released	17 December 2010 (2010-12-17)
Recorded	2010
Genre	Film soundtrack
Length	20:56
Label	Venus
Producer	Vidyasagar
Vidyasagar chronology
Mandhira Punnagai (2010)Mandhira Punnagai2010 Kaavalan (2010) Ilaignan (2010)Ilaignan2010

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Behindwoods

Kaavalan's audio launch was held on 8 December 2010. The soundtrack consists 5 tracks composed by Vidyasagar.

No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Vinnai Kaapan"	Pa.Vijay	Tippu, Shweta Mohan	4:30
2.	"Yaradu"	Yugabharathi	Karthik, Suchitra	4:27
3.	"Step Step"	Viveka	Benny Dayal, Megha	4:36
4.	"Sada Sada"	Yugabharathi	Karthik	4:15
5.	"Pattamboochi"	Kabilan	KK, Rita	3:48

Release

The satellite rights of the film were bagged by Sun TV for a record price. The film was given a clean "U" certificate by the Indian Censor Board.

Marketing

The trailer was world premiered on 16 December in the Bay Area, California, notably the first time for a Vijay film's trailer was launched outside India. Speaking at the event, Vijay made a request to his USA fans to provide support for the growth of Tamil Nadu.

The film was selected at the 14th Shanghai International Film Festival in the panorama section. SIFF had issued an invitation to actor Vijay as guest of honour.

Critical response

Sify.com described the film as "super fun" and a "perfect Pongal family entertainer" and rated 4.5/5.The reviewer particularly praised Vijay's performance, observing that the film works "purely on his star charisma and larger-than-life image" and that "he carries the film on his shoulders and is one good reason to watch the film". A critic from Rediff.com, while giving the film 3.5 out of 5 stars, credited Vijay for "shedding his action/political persona" and "choosing a script that focuses on comedy and emotions". Behindwoods.com rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and called it "a relatable love story shot in a cute and simple manner, rich with emotions, and a smooth narration". The reporter noted good chemistry between Vijay and Asin. Asin's performance was described as convincing. Oneindia commented, Vijay's performance as extraordinary and describing Kaavalan is a family entertainer with an extraordinary script".

Box office

Kaavalan release in 350 screens. Kaavalan released to generally positive reviews from critics. The film collected 8.8 million in Chennai at its opening weekend. By the end of seven weeks it grossed around ₹43.6 million (US$650,000) at the Chennai box office. The movie collected a record sum of ₹450 million (US$6.7 million) worldwide and completed a 100-day theatrical run.

Awards

Award	Category	Recipient	Result
Vijay Awards	Favourite Hero	Vijay	Nominated
	Entertainer of the Year	Vijay	Nominated
	Favourite Heroine	Asin	Won
	Favourite Film	Kaavalan	Won
	Favourite Song	Pattamboochi	Won
	Best Music Director	Vidyasagar	Nominated
	Best Comedian	Vadivelu	Nominated
	Best Male Playback Singer	Karthik	Nominated
	Best Lyricist	Kabilan	Won
SIIMA	Best Actress	Asin	Won

External links

• Official website
• Kaavalan at IMDb