Anegan

<p>In 1960s, Murugappa alias Munaruna is a Tamil worker in Burma. Munaruna’s friend Saamuda falls in love with Mallika, but Mallika loves Munaruna. Munaruna saves Samudra, the daughter of a Burmese , from a Ferris wheel accident and they fall in love. After learning about this, Mallika is devastated and marries Saamuda. The Burmese general disapproves of the union between Munaruna and Samudra, and revokes the privileges that the Tamil immigrants had until then. and the Tamil nationals flee Burma. Munaruna and Samudra join the refugees on a ship with Saamuda and Mallika. Samudra’s father arrives looking for her, where Mallika spitefully reveals about their hideout. As Samudra and Munaruna try to escape by diving into the ocean, Munaruna is shot and killed. Samudra handcuffs herself to Munaruna and drowns with him after promising to be together forever. In present-day India, Samudra, who is now known as Madhu, tells her psychiatrist Dr. Radhika that she has already met Saamuda and Mallika as Jagan and Meera, who are fellow programmers in the where she works. Radhika dismisses this as work stress and gives medicines to Madhu. Madhu meets Ashwin, a new employee in her company, and seeing his resemblance to Munaruna, flirts with him. Their boss Kiran knows to extract work from employees with ease. Meera hallucinates about ghosts trying to assault her, where she jumps from the office window and dies. Madhu is disturbed and attends her with Radhika when she remembers her first birth where she was a princess named Shenbagavalli and was in love with a king named Ilamaran, who also resembles Ashwin. The two are killed by a traitorous officer in Ilamaran’s army. Madhu and Ashwin meet with a car accident, where Madhu is admitted to a hospital. Madhu dreams about overhearing Gopinath’s conversation about a couple named Kaali and Kalyani, when she intervenes and says that she knows their whereabouts. Once awake, Madhu recites the dream to the policemen in the hospital and they are confused. Gopinath, who is the present , visits her and Madhu realizes that he looks like the same police officer from her dream in the hospital. Gopinath tells that the Kaali-Kalyani story was a missing person case that happened 25 years ago. Madhu claims that Kaali and Kalyani were killed and buried and takes Gopinath and Ashwin to a place where they dig up and find skeletons identified as remains of Kaali and Kalyani. Gopinath finds a ring engraved with the letter R on one of the skeletons. Ashwin is confused as to what R may mean. Kiran hears about her hallucinations and rushes to the clinic. Madhu hallucinates about her third birth, where she is Kalyani, a brahmin girl who falls in love with a goon called Kaali. Kalyani tells Kaali to confess his crimes and serve out his time in prison in return for her hand in marriage. Kalyani’s father Murthy is displeased and forcefully arranges her marriage with Ravi while Kaali is in prison. Kaali escapes from prison and meets Kalyani and they plan to elope, but Ravi finds out and offers to help them. However, Ravi takes them to a secluded spot, where he murders the couple out of jealousy and buries them. The finger with the ring belongs to Ravi and it was amputated by Kaali during the fight. Ravi unknowingly buries it along with Kaali’s and Kalyani’s corpses. Back to the present, Madhu learns the truth of Kaali and Kalyani’s death from Murthy. Suddenly, a twist occurs where it shows that Ravi is Kiran. Kiran kidnaps Madhu and kills Murthy. Ashwin finds video games with plots resembling the stories of Madhu’s previous births and Meera’s hallucination before her death. Ashwin saves Radhika from Kiran’s goons who tried to kill her. Radhika reveals that Kiran has been giving illegal drugs to his employees to boost their creativity to profit with intense and uniquely themed games. As a side effect of the drug, the employees hallucinate, leading to Madhu’s memories of her “past lives” and the recalling of the story of Kalyani as her own. Along with Radhika, Ashwin goes to Gopinath’s office to reveal about Kiran’s illegal activities. But on the way Kiran’s men attacks them again and it results in Radhika’s death. Ashwin reaches Kiran’s lair to save Madhu. A fight ensues, where Ashwin manages to confront and defeat Kiran and his men. Kiran is killed when a knife Ashwin threw into a tree falls onto his ch- Gopinath covers up the death as a suicide with Ashwin’s help, stating that Kiran killed himself for fear of dealing with the repercussions of his illegal activities. Ashwin and Madhu marry and honeymoon in Burma. As they playfully argue over whether Madhu’s dreams had all been hallucinations or partly true, Ashwin and Madhu pass by a log with a heart and the names of Munaruna and Samudra carved into it. Initially, K. V. Anand, narrated the story to first, but he could not commit the project, due to date issues, and suggested Dhanush’s name. In May 2013, stated that he would collaborate with for his next film, which Dhanush confirmed on his social network page. Anand joined hands with for the second time after (2012), and it was confirmed that the production company would also distribute the film worldwide. Though it was rumoured to be titled as , it was later dismissed by the director. Dhanush was said to appear in four different looks in the film, and that he would not be playing the “moody-sombre” type-role he played in his previous films like (2011). The film, a romantic entertainer laced with action was titled , meaning “the man with many shadows”, according to Tamil poet , from his volume, . It was revealed that the story comprises multiple period set-ups, and in one of the segments, Dhanush goes back to his previous birth. The technical crew consisted of cinematography by , editing by , action by and the dialogues were written by . As with most K. V. Anand films, was once again signed to compose the musical score. was rumoured to be playing the lead, before , a model who made her film debut in (2013) was later cast opposite Dhanush. In preparation for her role, she was asked to see Tamil films and also took Tamil lessons from Dhanush to get her dialogues right. Amyra was further reported to be performing stunts for the film. In an interview to , Amyra said that she would portray three different roles in the film. was signed to play the role of a love guru to Dhanush, for a part, similar to the role portrayed by in (2013), and also sport a look similar to that of Ajith’s look in (2011). Baby Vedhika of (2013) fame is also playing a role. Actress was selected to play the second heroine in the film. Actors and were selected to play supporting roles. Malayalam actress was also selected to play a supporting role in the film. Dhanush was said to appear in four different looks in the film since the film is set across different time periods. Furthermore, K. V. Anand had stated that Dhanush will be sporting a hairdo, for the character King Ilamaran, similar to ‘s look in the film, (1981). began on 2 September 2013 at . It was reported that the film would be shot across locations such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Burma among many other countries. In Malaysia, a football game scene was shot in the oldest English school in , . The second schedule took place in . where a song sequence was choreographed by Baba Baskar. According to unit members, Amyra stunned the unit with her perfect lip sync for Tamil dialogues and that she overshadowed the hero in some places as well. By 29 May 2014, 90% of the movie was shot, including 3 song sequences. Another song sequence and part of the climax were shot on a farmland, spread over 100 acres, near Puducherry. During the process of shooting the climax, which was reported to be a racy stunt sequence, Dhanush injured his leg severely, because of which shooting was halted for 3 weeks, after which Dhanush recovered and shooting proceeded as scheduled. The team then went to Scotland to shoot for a song sequence. In mid-August 2014, the filming was almost done with just a song left to be shot in on 1 September 2014. On 26 August 2014, Dhanush stated that he had started dubbing for the film. On 15 September 2014, Anand confirmed that the shooting of the film was completed. M. Suganth of in his review stated that the film “[had] traces of , , and ” but attributed the comparison “mainly due to the reincarnation theme.” The film’s soundtrack is scored by ‘s regular collaborator , which was his first and only collaboration with . The soundtrack album features six tracks, written by , , and . Recording of the songs took place within April to August 2014. The album was released by on 1 November 2014, through and later released at a launch event held on 2 November 2014, at the , in the presence of the film’s cast and crew. The soundtrack album received positive reviews, and the song “Danga Maari Oodhari” became a chartbuster upon release. The first look poster was released on 1 September 2013. The title font was designed to resemble a . A new title design and additional stills and posters were made available on 24 October 2013. The official teaser of the film was released on 22 October 2014, coinciding with . The official trailer was released on 13 January 2015. was touted to be one of the biggest film release for Dhanush. Initially, the film was rumoured to be released on 22 October 2014, coinciding with . However, the makers announced that, the film will not be released on Diwali, clashing with -starrer and -starrer , which was scheduled to release on the same date. In September 2014, the makers announced that the film would be released in November 2014. Furthermore, the uncertainty over the release of -starrer , and -starrer , led the makers to push the film’s release after , which falls on 15 January 2015. In December 2014, the film cleared the censors. The film was later scheduled to release on 29 January 2015, but due to the release of -starrer (2015), which was postponed to 6 February 2015, the makers pushed its release to end February. Since the , is scheduled to be held from 14 February 2015 in Australia, the makers brought forward its release to 13 February 2015, which also coincides with the Valentine’s Day weekend. Before its release being delayed to 2015, the film was listed by Behindwoods in its “Top 10 most Anticipated films of 2014″. The film opened in nearly 1000 screens worldwide, plus 500 screens in , making it the biggest release in Dhanush film. The film got exemption from levied by the state government. The film’s Tamil Nadu distribution rights, were bought by Dhanush’s home banner, . The distribution rights were bought by E4 Entertainment. Fox Star Studios, acquired the distribution rights. The overseas rights were bought by . In US, Atmus Entertainment bought the distribution rights, and released in 160 screens. The film was dubbed in as , and was released on 27 February 2015. The satellite rights of the film were sold to . The film’s television premiere took place on 14 April 2015, coinciding with festival. This caused their fans becoming displeased, and requested to postpone the premiere of the film. Despite that, the channel went ahead with the premiere. The film collected (US$1.9 million) in second day, (US$2.7 million) in third day and (US$6.3 million) in first weekend. The film collected (US$5.1 million) in , (US$3.1 million) in , (US$1.7 million) in and (US$1.5 million) in . The film grossed (US$6.5 million) in the second weekend. M. Suganth of rated the film 4 stars out of 5 and stated, ” is pure camp but also a hugely entertaining one”. Nicy V.P of rated it 3 stars out of 5 and wrote ” is a brilliant attempt by KV Anand, he tried a new visual style to tell his story and to an extent he was successful too”. Udhav Naig of wrote, “With most commercial films recycling the usual plot and its many tropes, full credit to K.V. Anand for striving to narrate a banal plot – full of déjà vu and clichés – in an enterprising manner.” Another reviewer Sudhir Srinivasan wrote ” …is a complex story told simplistically. Had the complexity been retained, and had the masala spoon been of lesser size, it would have made for a great film. For now, though, it will have to satisfy itself with being a hit film.” stated, “The narrative technique and interesting screenplay keep things moving at a brisk pace. But on the downside, there are far too many songs and several unanswered questions”. wrote, “Gorgeously shot, crisply edited, and handsomely mounted, KV Anand’s is a fast-paced rollicking adventure ride that is gripping till the very end”. rated the film 3 out of 5 and wrote “Although not a masala perse, savours all tastes. There is action, a little bit of revenge, lighthearted comedy, smothering love, all served with a twist from the usual.” rated it 2.75 out of 5 and stated “Though there are lots of questions which can be raised on the story and happenings, the overall screenplay and editing keeps you engaged by and large.” Gautaman Bhaskaran of rated it 2 stars out of 5 and stated “If is a mishmash of many films that one has seen over the years, the performances are passé. Yes, a new look Karthik may be a novelty, but Dhanush appears to be disinterested in changing his style or his roles.”</p>