Shanti Shanti Shanti

<p>Two siblings live with their father who refuses to give them money to pursue their goals. They befriend Raju, a poor man, who promises to help them achieve their dreams. The director of the film, T. B. Srinivas, an erstwhile assistant director to , collaborated with former state Sanjay Desai, a distributor and theatre-owner, to produce a film on the youngsters of and the idea soon started the film. Srinivas claimed he was inspired by two incidents — the kidnapping of a rich businessman by young thugs from who were attracted by Bangalore’s reputation as a fast-growing city with rich men and relaxed cops and the case of four city girls running away for a week with a man who promised to help them fulfill their ambitions — in order to write the story. The film became the first Kannada film for prominent cinematographer whilst noted composer was the . The film was notable for becoming the first language film to have a website for the film. The move happened on the initiative of the director, T. B. Srinivas, although the practice failed to set a trend in the industry. The music was composed by . All lyrics are written by . Tamil version had additional song “You Relax Baby” which was composed by Swararaj. All lyrics are written by . Upon release, the film became a financial failure for the producers. However, after the success of ‘s (2000) in which this film’s supporting actor Madhavan, played the lead role, producers opted to dub the film into Tamil as . The Tamil version featured songs from in Madhavan’s scenes. Actress Avni was given the stagename of Harini for the Tamil version, while composer Sandeep became Swaraj. Both lead actors threatened legal action, with Madhavan unhappy that a film in which he portrayed a supporting role would hamper his career in Tamil films, whilst Abbas was unhappy that the promoters were ignoring him. He also threatened action claiming that the producers owed him money. Srikanth Srinivasa of felt the film was a “clean, entertaing [sic]” one. Of the acting performances, he wrote, “Abbas is endearing. Avni is attractive. Prema is pretty and Madhavan is peppy. The casting of Satish Shah is unjustified. Prakash Rai outshines all the artistes with his natural performance as a rustic dhaba owner resembling Laloo Prasad Yadav.” While he also commended the cinematography, music and playback singing in the film, he felt the film faltered on dubbing and editing, in that “the second half could have been trimmed”. Reviewing Tamil dubbed version , wrote “The technical team is power-packed, with P C Sriram’s camera creating the right mood for the feisty flick. Much of the fun in a film of this kind is the dialogues, and Ravee delivers, with clever, fun-packed lines. The direction is clean and assured, no obvious bets are missed, and the pace and suspense never allowed to flag”.</p>