Kedi

<p>Raghu is a happy-go-lucky young man who is not serious about studies or life. He has a great time in college playing pranks with fellow students. His father dotes on him and so do his close friends. A new girl Priyanka joins his class, and she is the sister of Pughazhenthy, a powerful gangster-turned-minister. Priyanka lives a privileged life, and the college gets a facelift as her classroom is fitted with an AC, and the canteen gets a hip look. Priyanka even manages to change the principal using her brother’s influence, and she dislikes Raghu. Aarthi, a maid’s daughter, studies in the same class, and she has a secret admiration towards Raghu. Seeing the way in which Priyanka treats him, Aarthi gives moral support and motivates Raghu to come above Priyanka, who is an all-rounder and best student in the university. This infuriates Priyanka who slowly wants him at any cost. Aarthi is blackmailed by a boy who takes her vulgar photos and he saves her from it. Priyanka decides to separate them, and creates photos with him. Priyanka finally realises Raghu’s love towards Aarthi, and she tries everything possible to separate them but Pughazhenthy wants Raghu to marry his sister. He angers Aarthi by kidnapping and electrifying her, yet she turns normal on seeing Raghu, but worsens when she sees him getting shot. In the end, Aarthi goes mental, which enrages Raghu, who vows revenge on Priyanka. He pretends to accept the marriage and marries Aarthi at the last minute. Raghu discovers that Priyanka even murdered her brother in order to live with Raghu. The film ends with Priyanka killing herself and Raghu burying Aarthi’s chain at Priyanka’s grave. : The film, announced in 2005 under the title ( ), was later retitled after protestors alleged the original title was disrespectful to people of the . It was initially planned to be a Tamil-Telugu bilingual, with the Telugu version titled . A press meet for the Telugu version took place on 14 May 2006, but eventually, the film was released only in Tamil. It is the Tamil debut of both and . Bhatia said the director gave her the freedom to choose which role she wanted to play, and she chose the character of Priyanka who she felt was “new” and atypical in mainstream Tamil cinema. This is the first Tamil film for cinematographer A. T. Karun. Even before the completion of the first filming schedule, production was disrupted due to heavy rainfall, resulting in the loss of 70 planned days of shoot. Production resumed after the monsoon season had ended, and by mid-June 2006, 90% of filming was over, having taken place intermittenly in Chennai and Hyderabad. The soundtrack was composed by . Malini Mannath of wrote “The director shows a marked improvement, and a firmer grip on the medium this time, the narration smoother here. If only he hadn’t let himself be confused and lose focus in the second half!” Shyam Balasubramanian of wrote, “The most prominent reasons to watch Kedi are Tamanna and Ileana. See it for them, if for nothing else”. praised the performances of Ravi Krishna and Bhatia, but felt the former “has to work more on his dialogue delivery and shed that boyish accent”, and the latter “steals the show” while dismissing D’Cruz as a “major let down” due to her inability to emote. The critic concluded that the film “could have been better with some trimming”.</p>