| Ullam Ketkumae | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jeeva |
| Produced by | Mahadevan Ganesh Usha Venkatramani |
| Written by | Jeeva Sujatha |
| Starring | Shaam Arya Laila Asin Pooja |
| Music by | Harris Jayaraj |
| Cinematography | Jeeva |
| Editing by | V. T. Vijayan |
| Distributed by | APINT Ltd |
| Release date(s) | 3 June 2005 |
| Running time | 156 mins |
| Country | India |
| Language | Tamil |
Ullam Ketkumae (Tamil: உள்ளம் கேட்குமே) is a 2005 Tamil romantic film directed and co-written by Jeeva, with dialogues by Sujatha. The film features Shaam, Arya, Laila, Asin and Pooja in the lead roles as five college students. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Harris Jayaraj, while Vairamuthu penned the lyrics for the songs. The story tells the reunion of five friends who were together at college and exploring their relationships during the years. The film released after several delays in 2005 and went on to win critical and commercial success.
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The movie is all about a group of five college friends - Shaam (Shaam), Emaan (Arya), Pooja (Laila), Priya (Asin) and Irene (Pooja). The friends gather for the wedding of Emaan, years after everyone has parted ways.
The movie starts with Pooja leaving USA for the wedding. Meanwhile, everyone else is helping Emaan with the preparations for the wedding. The movie goes through series of flashbacks of old memories during their college days. Emaan & Irene meet for the first time in a long time, and the first flashback occurs. The audience finds out that they were once in love and find out what went wrong between them.
Another flashback occurs when Shaam remembers Pooja. Pooja is a fun-loving tomboy who was best friends with Shaam and was treated as if she's "one of the guys". Shaam realizes he's in love with Priya, and Pooja realizes she's in love with Shaam. Shaam and Pooja decides to reveal their love to the ones they love. Pooja learns that Shaam is in love with Priya, so she kept her love a secret. When Priya finds out Shaam's in love with her, she rejects his love, for she is a very cultural and innocent girl.
At last when we are taken back to the present day, the wedding. Everyone meets each other, and Pooja arrives. Pooja is no longer the same girl they all once knew. Does Pooja finally reveal her love to Shaam? Does Shaam finally realize who he's supposed to be with?
The film was first reported in April 2002, where it was revealed that Shaam and Richa Pallod were going to team up with director Jeeva, who had launched Shaam in the critically acclaimed 12B, for a college love story titled Pepsi.[1][2] The title Pepsi had stemmed from the first letter from the names of the five friends - Priya, Emaan, Pooja, Shyam and Irene. The film was later renamed and the film took the brand Pepsi's tagline in South India - Ullam Ketkumae - as the new title. Asin signed the film aged eighteen and the film was meant to mark her début in Tamil films, but the delay meant that M. Kumaran son of Mahalakshmi released almost a year before this one.[3] while working as a software engineer, Arya was approached by Jeeva to audition for the film in 2003 as the pair had lived in the same neighbourhood and had attended the same local mosque. Arya immediately signed on for the project and was given the stage name of Arya for the film by Jeeva.[4] Pooja was also signed on to make her début and play Irene in the film, although the film's delay meant that several of her other films released before Ullam Ketkumae hit the screens.[5]
Art director Thotta Tharani created a college campus for the film to be shot in, with his work drawing appeciation.[6] A scene featuring an inter college day cultural had 100 students from various states take part in the shooting while decorations and a podium were put up for a marriage scene in Taj Connemara hotel. Raju Sundaram choreographed five songs including a song shot at hot water springs in New Zealand.[7]
The film went through production hell, with three years being spent on the announcement till release.[8] The delay also led to the actors featuring in other projects during the period and Jeeva moving on to direct a Hindi film, Run. Despite giving indications that the film would release after delays on April 14, 2004 it was further pushed back due to financial issues.[9] In May 2005, the Supreme Court finally cleared the decks for the release, as earlier the Madras High court by a February 25 order appointed “Joint Receivers” for the film, which was objected by Prasad Labs who had gone to Supreme Court. It was agreed that the collections from the film will be received by “joint receivers” who will pay Prasad Labs for 72 prints of the film.[10] The film subsequently opened in Tamil Nadu on June 3, 2005.
The film released on June 3, 2005 and became a commercial success at the box office with pundits describing the film as a "sleeper hit". The film took a 90 percent opening in four Chennai screens with large collections reported at the Devi theatre in Chennai in the opening weekend.[11] The film surprisingly opened at number two at the Chennai box office despite competition, just below the Rajinikanth starrer Chandramukhi.[12]
A critic from nowrunning.com labelled that "Ullam Ketkumae is worth seeing as it has a certain truth and universality to it", claiming that "Shyam and Laila give an impressive performance" and that Jeeva has "remarkably caught the collage atmosphere, and the underlying passion, love and friendship".[13] The success of the film brought a series of offers for Shaam, whose career was struggling prior to release, whilst Arya and Asin were able to consolidate their positions of rising actors.[14][15][16] The success of the film later prompted a dubbed Telugu version being released on March 30, 2006 as Preminchi Choodu.[17]
| Ullam Ketkumae | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Harris Jayaraj | ||||
| Released | 2005 | |||
| Genre | Feature film soundtrack | |||
| Harris Jayaraj chronology | ||||
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| Title | Singers |
|---|---|
| Ennai Pandhada | Srinivas & Madhumitha |
| Kanavugal | Karthik, Arun, Tippu, Premji Amaran, Febi Mani, Pop Shalini & Suchitra |
| O Maname | Hariharan |
| Mazhai Mazhai | Unni Krishnan & Harini |
| Dho Dho | KK & Franko |
|
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