Villu

<p>Pugazh “Villu” is an and with a in . With the help of his relative Inspector Joseph, he succeeds in tracking down a wanted criminal named Raaka and trapping him to Joseph. The scene then shifts to a village, where Pugazh is attending the wedding of a ‘s daughter. He meets Janavi, a friend of the bride, and instantly falls in love with her. After persistent wooing, he succeeds in winning her heart. Janavi takes Pugazh to (Germany) to introduce him to her father J. D., a wealthy businessman and covert arms smuggler. During his stay in , he encounters J. D.’s gang, consisting of Shaan, a hotel pimp named Max, and another henchman. After initial confrontations with the three of them, he starts eliminating them one after another, and then J. D. becomes his remaining target. Janavi soon finds out that Pugazh is plotting to kill her father and warns Pugazh’s mother about her son. On the contrary, Pugazh’s mother not only knows and supports what Pugazh is doing, but she also reveals that she is not his real “mother” and tells her why Pugazh is after her father. Pugazh’s father Major Saravanan was a patriotic officer. During a mission, he noticed J. D., Shaan, Raaka, and their two henchmen, who were then army officers working in his team, accepting money from terrorists in exchange for allowing them to carry out their activities. When he confronted them, they killed him and fabricated a story claiming that since he accepted money from terrorists to help them, they killed him considering the safety of the other soldiers and themselves. He was stripped posthumously of his titles honours, and badges. During his funeral, his family, consisting of his wife and a young Pugazh, were humiliated as the military withdrew his honours and the villagers banished them from their village. The villagers also barred Pugazh from performing his father’s last rites and threw the dead body into a sand pit, where it got lost in a sand storm. The villagers, mainly through J.D. also the forehead of Pugazh’s mother with the title “wife of a traitor”. She sends her son away with Shaan’s estranged wife as she does not want him to grow up carrying the stigma of being the son of a disgraced army officer. In the present day, J. D. takes Pugazh to India to retrieve a containing J. D.’s secret information, which Pugazh had earlier received from Shaan and given to Joseph. Pugazh soon finds out that Raaka has escaped. Pugazh manages to flee from J. D.’s and Raaka’s clutches, and after a thrilling chase, he reaches an abandoned outside his village where he reunites with his mother, who had been living there since being banished from the village. J. D., Raaka and their henchmen arrive there. They kill Joseph, injure Pugazh and bury him alive. After a sandstorm unearths Pugazh, he wakes up kills Raaka and fights with J. D., weakening him. With all of the villagers assembled around the abandoned temple, Pugazh forces J. D. to reveal the truth about his father to them. After his confession, Pugazh kills J. D. in revenge for his father’s death. With the truth about Saravanan finally revealed, the army reinstates his titles, honours, and badges and also returns his army badge and uniform to his widowed wife. along with announcing his venture in Bollywood titled , which was the remake of , he launched his next Tamil venture in December 2007. was to produce the film as well. The film was initially titled as . Prabhu Deva later announced the titled to be . However, a copyright issue was brought up concerning the title , which was already announced as the by director . Prabhu Deva then changed the titled to , meaning “bow” in Tamil, a more formal spelling of . The team later found out that was to use the title for a . Suryah, with the negotiation of Vijay, later changed his film’s title. The title subsequently became the film’s official name. selected female role and Actress Ranjitha was selected to play Vijay’s wife and mother. Director started shooting for with the team’s first location being , . The team’s second location was set to be in . Prabhu Deva had reportedly planned two song sequences to be shot in European countries. Another song sequence was shot in , . Later, reports claimed that the film’s script and story would deal with a majority of the film taking place in . Prabhu Deva had reportedly planned two song sequences to be shot in European countries. In an interview with Prabhu Deva, a month prior to the film’s release, Prabhu Deva stated the film will be a “Tamil version of a James Bond film.” It was reported that Prakash Raj was missing from shooting when the crew was shooting the climax. , Kola Bhaskar and were confirmed the film’s , editor, and cinematographer respectively while FEFSI Vijayan was chosen as the stunt coordinator. was ‘s initial choice for the lead role. Prabhu Deva trusted the actor, due to their widely known friendship, after their success with the previous year. However, several critics and media had dubious thoughts on the choice of Vijay as the lead role actor for the film. Some websites wondered if would promote his career, or give him another average response, like his previous films and , which proved to be average grossers at the box-office due to their weak storyline and screenplay. was confirmed the film’s lead actress upon the film’s launch. was also confirmed for a supporting role. Earlier reports claimed that or were to be given a supporting role, but later the role went to . , , and were also said to be given roles in the film. However, Khushbu was later confirmed an item number appearance while Sarala was to sing a song in the film. Some scenes were shot at Kayamozhi village at Thiruchendur. A song and a fight sequence was shot at Tuticorin while other songs were shot at Bangkok, Malaysia and Switzerland. The soundtrack for this film was composed by . The audio was launched on 14 December 2008 at Hello FM radio station. Three of the songs, “Jalsa Jalsa”, “Dheemthanakka Thillana”, and “Daddy Mummy” had their beats reused from three Telugu songs DSP had previously composed: the eponymous song from ,”Om Namaste Bolo” from and “Akalesthey” from respectively. The satellite rights of the film were sold to . had a limited Blu-ray DVD release in and . This film was released on 12 January 2009, on the same day as Vijay’s 2007 film which was also directed by Prabhu Deva. It received negative reviews from fans and critics. Behindwoods.com gave 1.5 on 5 and said “With tacky production values, shabby cinematography and amateurish direction Villu comes across as a more than two-hour long.” while another website stated “On the whole, Vijay’s Villu is an action-packed mass masala film for his ardent fans but with loose ends.” reviewed the film “Leave your brains behind and prepare to enjoy the adventures of a Tamil James Bond.” and rated 2.5/5. rated the film 37 out of 100. wrote “Director Prabhu Deva, despite having such a thousand facilities, has messed up without giving a hit as much as . It is unfortunate that the bow that should be flown has become a slightly pushed model car”. praised the humour and music but panned the character design of antagonists and concluded calling as bow which does not have arrow to drop fruit. wrote ” But while director Prabhu Deva has weilded the bow well enough, he appears to have forgotten the arrow, and the film misses the bull’s eye”. wrote “This awful rip-off from the Hindi film Soldier (1998), itself not a very good film, leaves you speechless considering the cast, technical crew and the money spent. Director Prabhu Deva, while making Villu, said he was attempting to make a James Bond film in Tamil. Well, barring a couple of thrills, Villu has neither the humour, style or sophistication nor the bevy of beauties one associates with the Bond films. It is plain rotten”. wrote “With an excellent team to bolster the proceedings, Prabhu Deva could have had a surefire potboiler provided he had worked more on the screenplay. The enigmas that remain unsolved can be ignored, but the treatment that gets trying towards the end, cannot”. wrote “What works in its favour is the star cast, packaging and look of the film. It is the most stylish Vijay film ever made. Villu is technically slick and moves at a rapid pace. The director, however, is less concerned with the film’s plot and the pre-climax portion lacks punch as the story goes limp.”</p>