Pudhupettai

Pudhupettai
File:Pudhupettai movie poster.jpg Cover
Directed by	Selvaraghavan
Produced by	K Muralidharan V Swaminathan G Venugopal
Written by	Selvaraghavan Balakumaran
Starring	Dhanush Sneha Sonia Agarwal
Music by	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Cinematography	Arvind Krishna
Edited by	Kola Bhaskar
Production company	Lakshmi Movie Makers
Release dates	26 May 2006 (2006-05-26)
Running time	170 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Pudhupettai (Tamil: புதுப்பேட்டை English: New Hood/Area) is a 2006 Indian Tamil gangster film written and directed by Selvaraghavan, starring his brother Dhanush in the lead, whilst Sneha and Sonia Agarwal enact the lead female character roles. The film, with music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography by Arvind Krishna, Selvaraghavan's usual crew members, released on 26 May 2006, receiving universal critical acclaim for the music and picturisation and ending up a box office success. The film was dubbed into Telugu and released as Dhoolpeta.

Plot

The story is set in the backdrop of the slums of Pudhupettai in Chennai, as the title suggests, where a high school kid Kokki Kumar (Dhanush) sees his mom dead after he comes back from watching a film. His father, the murderer is also planning to kill his son Kumar. Kumar sensing danger runs away from home. Homeless and with no food Kumar resorts to begging until he is falsely arrested while standing by and watching a commotion on the street. In jail he befriends handymen of a local goon who take Kumar with them and give him petty jobs to do. In a confrontation with goons of another gang Kumar kills the brother of his enemy gang's head Murthy thus earning the respect of his gang and making enemies for himself both within his gang and outside.

Krishnaveni (Sneha) is a prostitute who also works under Anbu. Kumar falls in love with Krishnaveni and challenge Anbu to release her. Anbu in return beats Krishnaveni and orders to kill Kumar. Kumar approaches Anbu and asks to pardon him but Anbu wonders if it would be possible cancel the order to kill Kumar. Kumar infuriated kills Anbu and approaches Thalaivar (Azhagam Perumal). Thalaivar says if he could survive until the next day morning from Anbu's goon, who is seeking revenge, he would be bestowed with Anbu's area for business. Kumar survives and Thalaivar keeps him in place of Anbu.

Kumar grows even further in the underworld. He kills his father and his hench men. Murthy is stabbed by Kumar's men. Kumar joins Thalaivar's political party for immunity from police and arrests.

He then meets Selvi (Sonia Agarwal) on the eve of her wedding and falls in love with her and marries her forcibly during her wedding ceremony. Selvi is the sister of his favourite henchman who now becomes his sworn enemy and joins the enemy gang. Slowly Kumar starts accumulating serious enemies and eventually everyone start targeting for Kumar's head. Does Kumar survive the wrath of his enemies? forms the rest of the story.

Finally, Kumar kills Murthy(a ruling party MLA and Kumar's sworn enemy) and gets arrested, but the incumbent CM sees the high potential in Kumar and brings him out of prison and wipes off his record. The CM gives Kumar the his party's ticket from the dead leader's constituency by-election. then it is told that Kumar won that election, became an MLA and 10 years, later the Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu. He owns large number of Industries and Educational Institutions. But still his lost son is not found.

Cast

• Dhanush as Kokki Kumar
• Sneha as Krishnaveni
• Sonia Agarwal as Selvi
• Azhagam Perumal as Thamizhselvan
• Bala Singh as Anbu
• Vijay Sethupathi as Anbu's Henchman
• Aadukalam Murugadoss as Anbu's Henchman

Production

Selvaraghavan was originally supposed to make a film titled Oru Naal Oru Kanavu for Lakshmi Movie Makers but shelved the venture and began working with the same producers and the same star cast of Dhanush, Sonia Agarwal and Sneha on the gangster film Pudhupettai. The film was launched on 6 March 2005, with Yuvan Shankar Raja and Aravind Krishna announced as Music Composer and Cinematographer respectively.

Theme

After the release of Pattiyal whose theme was the same as Pudupettai (dwelling on gangsters in Chennai), Selvaraghavan wanted to re-do many of the scenes to make them look fresh and new, hence the delay. The re-recording was done in Bangkok, with everyone involved working overtime.

Music

Pudhupettai
Soundtrack album by Yuvan Shankar Raja
Released	December 16, 2005 (2005-12-16)
Recorded	Kalasa Studio (Chennai) & Chapraya Symphony Orchestra (Bangkok) 2005
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	44:46
Label	Hit Music Vega Music
Producer	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Yuvan Shankar Raja chronology
Agaram (2005)Agaram2005 Pudhupettai (2005) Happy (2005)Happy2005

Yuvan Shankar Raja and Selvaraghavan renewed their association with this film, who had earlier teamed up to give highly successful and critically acclaimed music in the film Thulluvadho Ilamai (2001), Kaadhal Kondein (2004) and 7G Rainbow Colony (2005). The entire music, including soundtrack and film score, was composed in Thailand, where Yuvan Shankar Raja worked together with the Chao Phraya Symphony Orchestra of Bangkok, which would feature for the first time in a Tamil film. Several Traditional Thai musical instruments, including Khim and Southuu were also used for the orchestration.

The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and released on 15 December 2005. It features 10 tracks overall, out of which six tracks are songs and the remaining four Instrumental pieces, which belong to the film score. The lyrics were written by Na Muthukumar, who had written the lyrics for Selvaraghavan's earlier film as well. However, this film remains to be the most recent collaboration of Muthukumar and Selvaraghavan as the latter had replaced Muthukumar with Vairamuthu for his future projects. Specially mentionable is the fact, that actor Kamal Haasan had sung one of the song, although he didn't act in the film. The film's lead actor Dhanush had rendered a rap song as well. As an interesting aspect, every track carries a title to reflect the theme, the track belongs to.

Yuvan Shankar Raja received rave reviews for both the songs and the film score, which is considered to belong to Yuvan Shankar Raja's best ever works. The songs, in particular, were hailed as "brilliant", "innovative", and even "a musical milestone". The music also gained immense popularity among the masses, especially among youth, topping the "Tamil Music Charts" for the following weeks.

Track	Song	Singer(s)	Duration (min:sec)	Notes
1	Pudhupettai Main Theme: "Survival Of The Fittest"	Instrumental	2:51
2	Peek Into Assassin's Life: "Neruppu Vaayinil"	Kamal Haasan	5:01
3	Our Story: "Enga Yeriya"	Dhanush, Premji Amaran, Yuvan Shankar Raja	5:19	Incorporates elements of the songs "Kunguma Pottin Mangalam" from the 1968 film Kudiyiruntha Kovil, composed by M S Viswanathan and "Tharaimel Pirakka" from the 1964 film Padagotti, composed by Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy
4	Selling Dope: "The Beginning"	Instrumental	2:52
5	It All Comes Down To this!: "Oru Naalil"	Yuvan Shankar Raja	6:25	Written by Na Muthukumar. Not featured in the film
6	Going Thru Emotions!: "Prelude"	Instrumental	3:17
7	Gangster's Marriage Party: "Pul Pesum Poo Pesum"	Vijay Yesudas, Tanvi Shah, Premji Amaran, Yuvan Shankar Raja	5:26
8	Night Life: "Varriyaa"	Narayan, Naveen Mathav, Ranjith, Vasu	3:28
9	Clash Of The Titans: "The War Cry"	Instrumental	3:44
10	"Oru Naalil": Composer's Dream Mix	Yuvan Shankar Raja	5:23	Remixed by DJ Rafiq Not featured in the film

Technology

"Pudupettai" is the first Tamil film to be released in the Super 35 mm format which allows for a larger image area packing in more details in the frame. It enhances viewing experience. Technologically the film has many other firsts to its credit.

According to Director of Photography Arvind Krishna, the film will be a very different experience. "It has some intensive matt-based colour correction, and also altered colour tones for different scenes and moods.' It is also the first film to be digitally projected by directly scanning the negative at 2K resolutions and converting them to digital projection format.

Box Office

Pudhupettai had taken the best ever opening for a Selvaraghan film, netting nearly ₹27.55 lakh (US$41,000) from five Chennai screens in three days including ₹9.8 lakh (US$15,000) from Sathyam Cinemas. The film was a success and sold 4 million tickets worldwide grossing ₹150 million (US$2.2 million) at the box office.

External links

• Pudhupettai at IMDb
• Pudhupettai Songs at Dhanush Fan Club