Jil Jung Juk

<p>In post-apocalyptic , 2020, amidst huge demand for petrol and money, Deivanayagam, an erstwhile powerful gangster, gets a chance to smuggle to defeat his nemesis, Rolex Rowther. Deivanayagam hires three men: Nanjil Shivaji (Jil), Jambulingam (Jung), and Jaguar Jagan (Juk), to safely deliver the cocaine to a Chinese gang in . With the help of scientist Marundhu, Deivanayagam sells the drugs by coating them in painted pink so that it would not be detected by the police. Along the way, Jil, Jung, and Juk encounter Narasimhan, who has an almost identical car. Narasimhan eventually befriends the trio and takes them into a pub. After a drink at night, the trio escapes the pub without his knowledge but later realise that they have taken Narasimhan’s car in their drunken state. Narasimhan had been assigned by Deivanayagam’s assistants, Pai and Marundhu, to steal the car and sell it to a gangster called Attack Albert. Confused, the trio went to a film shooting spot where they see a car being used in an action sequence, left damaged after the shoot. It was later revealed that the car was thought to be the Ambassador car that Deivanayagam was assigned to deliver. Shocked and dismayed, the trio confronts Narasimhan about his plans and takes them with his car so that they can paint the car in pink and coat the stuff, but as they do not have cocaine, they decide to approach Albert. He kidnaps the trio and eventually manages to escape the location with the stuff Albert has. Rowther learns of Deivanayagam’s plans and decides to have a meeting with Deivanayagam. The trio is caught and held by Rowther’s men. During their business dealing, Deivanayagam reveals that the watch he had given to Rowther was fake. A gang war takes place between Deivanayagam and Rowther’s men until Albert arrives and kills the two gangsters so that he can be a powerful drug lord. Albert kidnaps Jil, Jung, and Juk to murder them, taking them far away. Juk’s father, a bus driver, rescues the trio. All of them fight Albert’s men. However, Albert arrives with a to kill the men, but it is stopped by a marble and eventually backfires and crashes. Jil, Jung, and Juk escape the place and lead a happy life. The Chinese gang, who had been waiting for the delivery, feels dejected that Jil failed to arrive, and they leave empty-handed. I was having a conversation with my friend Mohan Ramakrishnan one day with whom I had studied engineering. We were discussing how interesting it would be if we could incorporate the three dimensions of physics namely mass, time and length into human characters and that is when we struck upon this new dimension of hit men and the title of Jil, Jung and Juk, which fit the characters beautifully marked the debut directorial venture of Deeraj Vaidy. During his career as a software engineer, he became interested in filmmaking and had made two short films before approaching in late 2014. He made a of , which impressed Siddharth, who asked him to conceptualise the script as a feature film. When he read the final draft of the script in January 2015, Siddharth was impressed. Apart from acting, Siddharth agreed to produce the venture under Etaki Entertainment, making this his second film as a producer after (2012) and his first solo project as a producer. The film’s title was derived from dialogue spoken by in (1994). Deeraj Vaidy co-wrote the script with Mohan Ramakrishnan, his friend. He described the film as “an offbeat film that did not need a conventional hero”. The film’s technical crew consisted of relative newcomers: except for composer , debutant Shreyaas Krishna handled the cinematography, whilst Kurtz Schneider was the editor. Siddharth starred as Nanjil Sivaji (Jil). Deeraj chose him as the protagonist because he wanted someone who never hesitates to experiment. As the film is set in a fictional world, Siddharth wore in the film, which was considered to be an “unusual look” for a man. Avinash Raghudevan and were cast in the other leading roles as Jambulingam (Jung) and Jaguar Jagan (Juk), respectively. The former was described as a “scary, yet logical guy” while the latter was described as a “constant troublemaker”. Avinash practised various mannerisms for his role in the film saying, “Whenever Jung speaks, his cheek starts twitching. It was interesting to practise this, and I had full freedom on the set to come up with suggestions”. Both Avinash and Sananth had appeared in the pilot version of the film, shot in 2014, with Kanna Ravi playing Siddharth’s role. offered to act without accepting any remuneration, but Siddharth still paid him. The film intentionally did not have a female lead actor; the only female cast member, briefly appears an actress. Filming of began in late May 2015, with portions of the film shot in , , and . The interior scenes were shot on sets in Chennai. The team completed the shooting in 38 days. The film’s post-production began in September 2015, and the team first promoted the film to the media on 9 September. Work on the project was delayed due to the , but the team worked tirelessly so that they could complete post-production work by the end of the year. Being set in a futuristic world, explores the three dimensions of physics — mass, time, and length — as human characters, describing Jil, Jung, and Juk. Vishal Menon of wrote about how the film was inspired by the works of , , , , and films starring . The film also explores the concept of the , an idea about how a small incident can cause larger effects: in a scene with Jil, there is a reference to the song “Oh Butterfly” from (1992). In another scene, a flap of a butterfly’s wing literally sets off a series of events. The film also had a connection with (1989): a scene in which Sananth reveals the backstory of his father, a former bus driver, who had joined Deiva’s gang and had stolen a pink 1960 belonging to Rolex Rowther, along with cash, and a heroine whom Rowther had kidnapped. Siddharth mockingly asked whether his father had kept Soppanasundari, the previous owner of that car, a reference to the plot of . composed the soundtrack for . It was released through on 10 November 2015. The first look of was unveiled to the public in late October 2015. The film’s teaser trailer was likened to the works of Guy Ritchie with regards to its colour tone and background score. In mid-November 2015, Siddharth announced that the film would have a theatrical release worldwide on 25 December 2015, coinciding with . However, following the 2015 South Indian floods that occurred during early December, Siddharth announced that the theatrical release of the film would be postponed to 2016, as he and his team had to work on relief measures for people affected by the flood. The trailer for the film was released by , on the eve of (14 January 2016); the film’s new worldwide release date was set for 12 February 2016. As part of the promotional activities, the cast of — Siddharth, Sananth, and Avinash – appeared in a video made by the channel , released before the film’s release. The video, titled , sarcastically mocked the trend in Tamil of having the cast making a parody of their film. The video garnered attention of film buffs and more than a million views on YouTube. A Coimbatore-based startup company called Creative Monkey Games & Technologies designed an Android game based on the film and released it before the film’s release date in February 2016. It was downloaded 8,000 times within five days of the launch. Deeraj Vaidy planned to launch the director’s cut version of this film through on 1 April 2020. However, the video was taken down due to copyright violation. received mixed reviews from critics. M. Suganth of gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote, “To some extent, the director offsets such disappointments by providing us with a steady stream of quirkiness, but the climax, which is over-stretched and cliched, leaves us with a film that we admire but cannot wholeheartedly fall in love with.” Sudhir Srinivasan of praised the quirky ideas used in the film, but criticised the team for “encouraging mainstream and discomfiting ideas”. He further went on to say, “It’s all rather queer, but does oddity necessarily equate to enjoyability?” Malini Mannath of wrote, “Jil Jung Juk seems more a case where the actors seem to have had more fun enacting their scenes, than what the viewers experience watching them.” S. Saraswathi of gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, “The film does have its share of laughs, but it lacks the chaos, excitement and crazy fun that would have made the film more enjoyable. The wacky entertainment that was promised in the intriguing trailer is missing. Despite its faults, does make a decent entertainer.” Latha Srinivasan of criticised the script, saying that “it falls short of expectations, particularly in the second half”, while praising the technical aspects and other novel elements of the film. Arathi Kannan of gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote, “To call a dark comedy could only be justified to some extent, for it doesn’t employ the noir elements (popularised by Korean and Hollywood masters) like the brilliance of violence, satirical narrative or even a style statement”. In contrast, Gauthaman Bhaskaran of gave the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and said the three lead actors “produce enough laughs through some great one-liners in the first half of the film; but this becomes a serious flaw post intermission, when Vaidy, who also wrote the script, runs out of ideas and begins to stretch scenes till they appear irritatingly repetitive. And the performances are passe as well, and do not add up either.” Anupama Subramanian of gave it 2 out of 5 stars and wrote, “The major drawback is its ordinary screenplay. What ideas looked great on paper, lose steam in execution and the jokes fall flat many times, especially during the latter half.” gave it 2 out of 5 stars and wrote, “the film is occasionally Jil (Good) mostly Jung (Average) and largely Juk (Worst)” and further added, “Just like any other dark comedies in Tamil cinema (most of them are inspired by Guy Ritchie flicks), here too each and every character has got interesting back stories and to be honest, they initially create good impression but over indulgence and repetitive gags spoils the show.”</p>