| Velayudham | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | M. Raja |
| Produced by | Venu Ravichandran |
| Written by | M. Raja |
| Starring | Vijay Genelia D'Souza Hansika Motwani Saranya Mohan |
| Music by | Vijay Antony |
| Cinematography | Priyan |
| Editing by | V. T. Vijayan |
| Studio | Aascar Films |
| Distributed by | Aascar Films Ayngaran International |
| Release date(s) | 26 October 2011 |
| Running time | 160 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Tamil |
| Budget | 45 crore (US$8.55 million)[1] |
| Box office | 89.1 crore (US$16.93 million)[2] |
Velayudham (Tamil: வேலாயுதம்) is a 2011 Tamil action-masala film[3] directed by M. Raja.[4] It stars Vijay, Hansika Motwani, Genelia D'Souza and Saranya Mohan in lead roles. Produced by V. Ravichandran's Aascar Films, the story revolves around an ordinary milkman, trying to eradicate corruption.[5] The film was released on October 26, 2011 to mixed reviews from critics, but became a commercial success.
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The film opens up in Pakistan with a blindfolded person being dragged by a few terrorists. He is brought to the leader of the gang and identified as the Home Minister of Tamil Nadu. Further plans are revealed when the gang strikes a hefty deal with him for planting a series of bombs in Chennai. Then happens a bomb explosion at a transportation bus in the city killing many innocent peoples. A group of three journalists, including Bharathi (Genelia D'Souza), commit to eradicating terrorism in the country after completing their Journalism course. One night, Bharathi and her two friends secretly film the illegal activities like creation of explosives and women trafficking happening in a secluded house. However, the journalists' presence is detected and their escape attempt results in the deaths of her friend and injury to Bharathi. But after the attack on Bharathi and her friends, the goon's vehicle explode due to a small mishap when a matchstick falls over petrol packets stored in the vehicle. Bharathi, already stabbed by one of the goons, comes up with a new idea to eradicate terrorism by creating a fictional character called Velayudham, and writes a note that he wants to clean up the city of bad guys before falling unconscious.
Velayudham a.k.a Velu (Vijay) is a milk vendor in a village called Pavunoor, and he has a sister named Kaveri (Saranya Mohan) he loves and a cousin Vaidehi (Hansika Motwani) who is crazy about him. Though the brother and sister creates lot of trouble for the villagers, they are still adored by the villagers. They, along with a couple of village friends, arrive in Chennai to collect money from a chit fund for his sister's marriage, and somehow Speedu (Santhanam) gets part of their money. On chasing Speedu in a railway station, Vel uses a bike to catch him, and it explodes a few seconds later. Next few moments he inadvertently prevents few bomb blasts and helps catch terrorists, thus Velayudham becomes a sensation over time. He even manages to save Bharathi in one of the incidents which he never meant for it to happen.
Velu is unaware of the consequences, later Bharathi realises Velu is the guy who has been accidentally doing the work of Velayudham. Bharathi meets him, explains and asks him to become the fictional character, however he refuses. Later Velu goes to draw cash from the chit fund but the company cheats him off his money and the people who are cheated vow that Velayudham will come as their saviour. Velu seeing this decides to take upon the avatar of Velayudham and starts to do eradicate certain evil that pertains within the society forms the crux of the last half of the movie.
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The film was launched on July 15, 2010 at the Madras University campus.[6] Genelia D'Souza who had acted opposite Vijay in Sachein was chosen for the role of a journalist,[7] and Hansika Motwani was chosen to portray Vijay's love interest,[8][9] while Saranya Mohan would play sister to Vijay's character.[10] Art director Veera Samar also was roped in to play a journalist.[11] While Santhanam and M. S. Baskar were chosen to play the comedy lead in the film,[12] Sayaji Shinde, Vineetkumar and Abhimanyu Singh were selected to play negative roles.[13] Tom Delmar, who had worked as a stunt coordinator in several Hollywood films, joined the crew to choreograph the stunts in the film.[14][15] Due to his commitment to Velayudham, Vijay almost lost his role in S. Shankar's Nanban. He had walked out of Nanban, since the two films demanded two completely different looks,[16] however, he joined the film later as the scenes involving the protagonist were reserved to be shot later.[17]
Filming was carried out primarily at three locations, Southern Tamil Nadu, Kerala[18] and the last schedule in Chennai.[19] A song sequence choreographed by Shobi that was originally to be shot in Switzerland was canned in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir,[20] with Genelia and Hansika filming alongside Vijay.[21] A stunt sequence was shot on a train moving on a bridge at Rayagada in Orissa under Tom Delmar's supervision,[22] while another fight sequence was filmed at Golkonda fort, Hyderabad.[23] The film's dubbing was done in Four Frames Recording Studio in Chennai.[24]
The film has been widely reported to be a remake of the 2000 Telugu film Azad that starred Soundarya as a journalist and Akkineni Nagarjuna as a villager, incidentally the roles essayed by Genelia and Vijay, respectively.[7][25] However, director M. Raja claimed that it was not a remake but his own story.[26] He later admitted that Azad served as the inspiration and that he had penned a new screenplay.[22] Vijay had signed up to appear in a village action story titled Velan in 2001 to be directed by Thirupathisamy, the director of Azad, which was postponed indefinitely after the death of the director.[27] Raja told his cast that it was inspired by Azad and requested them to not watch the original.[28] Post the film's release, Raja said that his brother Jayam Ravi had help him in improving the script.[29] Another reported influence for the film was the costume worn by the lead character, which was believed to have been loosely borrowed from Assassin's Creed.[30]
| Velayudham | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Original CD cover |
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| Soundtrack album to Velayudham by Vijay Antony | ||||
| Released | 28 August 2011 | |||
| Recorded | Audiophiles | |||
| Genre | Feature film soundtrack | |||
| Length | 25:04 | |||
| Language | Tamil | |||
| Label | Sony Music Entertainment | |||
| Producer | Vijay Antony | |||
| Vijay Antony chronology | ||||
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The soundtrack is scored by Vijay Antony. The audio right was bought by Sony Music for huge amount.[31] The soundtrack consists of 6 tracks and was released on 28 August 2011, at CSI Grounds in Madurai, attended by thousand of Vijay fans. Vijay, Hansika Motwani, S. A. Chandrasekhar, Vijay Antony, Viveka, and several distributors and theatre owners were present in function.[32] According to Sony Music Entertainment Chennai, the soundtrack received an overwhelming response with all units produced been sold within a day of release, creating a new record.[33]
| Tracklist | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Singer(s) | Length | |||||
| 1. | "Rathathin Rathame" | Annamalai | Haricharan, Sri Madhumitha | 4:38 | |||||
| 2. | "Molachu Moonu" | Vivega | Prasanna, Supriya Joshi | 4:52 | |||||
| 3. | "Chillax" | Annamalai | Karthik, Charulatha Mani | 4:25 | |||||
| 4. | "Mayam Seidhayo" | Vivega | Sangeetha Rajeshwaran | 4:14 | |||||
| 5. | "Sonna Puriyadhu" | Siva Shanmugam | Vijay Antony, Veera Shankar | 5:39 | |||||
| 6. | "Vela Vela Velayutham" | Priyan | Vijay Antony, Mark | 1:16 | |||||
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Total length:
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25:04 | ||||||||
The soundtrack received mixed reviews, with critics recommending the album for Vijay's fans. Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff gave it 2 out of 5 stating "Vijay Antony plays it safe mostly, with the result that there's nothing new."[34] P. G. Devi from Behindwoods gave it 2.5 out of 5 and said "Vijay Antony continues to flaunt his success this time around with Velayutham. The album has a bunch of entertaining soundtrack like, 'Molachu moonu', 'Mayam Seidhayo' and usual mass beat tracks 'Sonna Puriyadhu' and 'Vela Vela'."[35] Prakash Upadhyaya from Oneindia.in said "Vijay Antony's music has met the expectations of the audience. The album has all kinds of songs and the music director has targeted the mass as well as class listeners".[36] Indiaglitz said "the music album [...] presents us a variety fare, however with the main target being the 'mass audience'", labelling it as a "food festival for the appetite of Vijay fans, who are craving for mass masala numbers from their hero".[37]
The film was initially supposed to be released on 22 July, coinciding with Vijay's birthday, but was postponed due to delay in production.[38] The film was given a U (Universal) certificate by the Indian censor board on October 13, 2011.[39] The satellite rights were sold to Jaya TV for a price of 4 crores,[40] and the theatrical trailer was released in October 2011 to positive response.[41]
Velayudham released on 26 October 2011, during the Deepavali festival.[42] The film was released with over 820 prints worldwide, making it the biggest release in Vijay's career. It also saw a release in about 100 theaters in Karnataka and 120 theaters in Kerala, owing to the actor's fan following in the neighbouring states.[43] The film released across 40 theaters in Chennai.[43] As per overseas distributor Ayngaran International, the film released in 26 theatres in UK, second only to Endhiran.[44] The US theatrical rights were acquired by GK Media.[5]
The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Sify called it a "paisa vassol film", stating that the film was a "perfect outing with family, but far too long in length".[45] Rediff.com gave the film 2.5 out of 5, while noting that it "doesn't take itself seriously and doesn't expect you to either. In other words, it's paisa vasool."[46] CNN-IBN defined the film as a "must watch" and "treat for Vijay fans".[47] Indiaglitz labelled it a "racy entertainer this Deepavali season" and cited it was a "right choice for the festival mood".[48] The Times of India gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, and concluded that Velayudham is sure to add to his box-office muscle.[49] Behindwoods. named the film a "regular mass entertainer spiced up by Vijay" and gave the film 3 out of 5 as well.[50] Similarly Oneindia.in described it as a "complete masala entertainer", highlighting its story and "amazing action-sequences".[51] Nowrunning.com rated it 2.5/5, writing: "Velayudham, part comedy part action sails through both streams smoothly until it is struck and sunk by crude melodrama".[52] The Hindu stated that the film "simply enters and entertains" and that Raja had "churn[ed] out reasonably engaging fare", adding that it had a "strong story, a neat screenplay [...] arresting action, admirable dance movements, one or two hum-worthy numbers and the ever-helpful sister sentiment".[53] Indo-Asian News Service gave the film 2.5 out of 5, citing that it "defies all logic, but has the magic of the star called Vijay".[54]
Velayutham took a big opening on Diwali day and was declared a box office success.[55][56] The film topped the regional box office despite opening with less prints than 7aum Arivu,[57] forcing the producers to release more prints.[58][59]
In its opening weekend, spanning five days, the film grossed 2.10 crore (US$399,000) crore in Chennai city alone.[60] According to trade sources, the film grossed 19 crore (US$3.61 million) in Tamil Nadu and around 40 crore (US$7.6 million) during the first weekend worldwide from 850 screens.[61][61][62] On October 28, two days after its release, Vijay, Vijay Antony and director Raja met the press at a hotel in Chennai to celebrate the success of the film.[29]
The total collections in chennai is 7.74 crore (US$1.47 million) crore after a good run at the box-office for 6 weeks.[63]
Overseas, Velayudham was a relatively high grosser in Europe and North America, with Taran Adarsh, a Bollywood film critic highlighting that the film was "rocking internationally".[64] The film in its five-days extended weekend had collected $107,843 in UK, as the film featured at 20th position in the UK Box Office with a per screen average of $6,344 (third highest)[65][66]
Velayudham was honored with the Best Film Award at V4 Entertainment Awards 2011.[67][68][69] Velayudham which secured 46.9 % of votes was declared as the Best Movie of 2011 in the year-end public poll conducted by Oneindia.in.[70]