New (film)

New
DVD Cover[citation needed]
Directed by	S. J. Surya
Produced by	S. J. Surya
Written by	S. J. Surya
Starring	S. J. Surya Simran Manivannan Devayani
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Cinematography	K. V. Guhan
Editing by	Anthony
Studio	Annai Mary Madha Creations
Release dates	9 July 2004
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	40 million (US$640,000)
Box office	120 million (US$1.9 million)

New (Tamil: நியூ) is a 2004 Tamil film directed, written and produced by S. J. Surya, who also features in the lead role. Simran, Kiran Rathod and Devayani play supporting roles, while A. R. Rahman composes the music. New is about an 8-year-old boy who is turned into a 28-year-old man by a scientist and is loosely inspired by the Hollywood film Big (1988).

New was released on 16 July 2004 and became a surprise blockbuster while also getting embroiled in a series of controversies post-release.

Plot

Pappu an eight-year old boy who is very mischievous always troubling his mother. His mother scolds him when he eats the toothpaste, urinate in bed at night. Pappu falls down on a road one day and a young woman helps him. Pappu's elder brother plans to watch adults movie with his friends in the absence of their parents and Pappu demands him to join him to which his brother does not allow him. Angered, Paapu cuts off the power which creates a short circuit at home. Pappu's mother scolds for his dangerous mischief and shouts at her husband for not stopping with one child as Pappu is troubling her a lot. This hurts Pappu and he runs away from home to jump into a river. But he is stopped by an old man and he takes Pappu to his place. The old man introduces himself as a scientist who has his own laboratory. He insists Pappu to help him in his research of transforming a child to a young man. Pappu agrees and the scientist transforms him to a young man. Pappu starts to live as a young man physically but as a child mentally and stays away from his family. The only person other than scientist who knows the truth is his child classmate friend. Pappu meets the girl at a park who helped him once he fell down on road. Innocent child Pappu helps to remove dust from her eyes, smiles at her and leaves the place. The girl is very much attracted towards him and she looks for him every day.

Pappu goes for an interview in a company under the name of Vichu. The company is toy manufacturing company and the owner who interviews him demands to have childhood memories and should be like a child to understand children's taste. Since Pappu himself is a child he grabs the job easily. Vichu is diverted to the daughter of the owner who is none other than the girl named Priya who helped Pappu once on road and whom she was helped by him at the park. Priya is surprised and happy to see him in her company. Priya-Vichu intimacy creates a jealousy for Raj another employee in the company who intends to attract her and marry her. The cold war continues when Pappu overcomes Raj's idea for a new type of bed for kids and introduces his own idea creating a successful product. Pappu meets his brother as an anonymous man and hears that his mother is very depressed on Pappu's disappearance. Pappu meets his mother who fell sick since her son got missed. She feels bad for having so strict to her child which she had done for his goodness. Pappu realised his mother's love and goes to scientist to change him back to eight-year old boy. Scientist understands his mind and he again transforms him to eight-year old boy and Pappu reconciles with his mother. But again at night he changes back to young man and he immediately rushes to scientist. But scientist does not know what has happened and both of them are shocked on Pappu's present condition.

Pappu now lives as an eight-year old boy during day time and as a twenty eight-year man during night time. Priya expresses her love to him but Pappu tells her to love a man suitable for her age. Scientist tells Pappu to accept Priya and Vichu accepts her love. Priya tortures him always to which he cannot withstand. Priya tells him accompany for a matinee show. Since Pappu is a boy during day time he cannot come. But he sees Priya waiting in anger for him in the theatre while going to home from his school along with his mother. Pappu's mother befriends Priya as they are neighbours and Priya likes small boy Pappu. Priya gets angry on Vichu's (Pappu's) absence. She finally decides to both get married. Raj kidnaps Vichu on day of marriage but Vichu changes to Pappu during daytime. The kidnappers release him as they misunderstand of kidnapping a child. Pappu transforms to Vichu and marries Priya at evening time.(Hindu marriages take place usually at mornings). Vichu though a young man by body but small boy and does not know anything about marital life. Now Vichu lives as an eight-year son to his mother during days and as Vichu, an employee in his wife's company and as husband to his wife during night time. Pappu somehow manages his mother by disappearing during nights.Priya needs a child so she intentionally shows her skin to him by intentionally removing her clothes. Priya is now pregnant and Vichu is now a child dad. Vichu once meets Pappu's (his) mother and understands the difficulties of pregnancy for a woman. Hence he takes care of his wife with full affection. Pappu's child friend demands to spend time and come to play with him but Pappu refuses as has got tight schedule as a son, as an employee and as a husband. His friends get angry and reveals the truth to Priya. Priya is shocked to hear that she is bearing the child of a child.

Priya argues with Pappu for marrying her and made her pregnant but Pappu shouts at her arrogance of having involved him in trouble in spite of his warning to marry a suitable man of her age. Pappu turns to Vichu in front of her and Priya is further shocked to see the transformation by her own eyes. But Vichu reveals that he loves her anything else in this world. Priya now gets labour pain and Vichu takes her to hospital. But on the way Vichu is stopped by Raj's men seeking revenge. Vichu overcomes the difficulties and admits her in the hospital. Everybody now comes to know the truth about Pappu and Priya gives birth to Pappu's son and she is upset on her fate of being a child's wife.

Twenty years pass by. Now Pappu is a real young man of twenty-eight years old.He still lives with Priya as her husband. He goes inside his room as young man and comes out as a forty eight-year old man who is now husband of forty year old Priya and father of twenty year old son who looks like him. Pappu calls scientist to find if he had found remedy for his transformation to which he gets a negative reply from him.

Now Pappu shall live a life as a man with actual age during dawn to dusk and live as a man with actual age plus twenty years from dusk to dawn.

Cast

• S. J. Surya as pappu (Vichu)
• Master Pardh as pappu
• Simran as Priya
• Kiran Rathod
• Devayani
• Ishwarya
• Nassar
• Manivannan
• Janagaraj
• Brahmanandam
• Ali

Production

The film was first announced by S. J. Surya in 2000, where he reported that Ajith Kumar and Jyothika would play the lead roles in the film, with Kareena Kapoor in a guest appearance.^[1][2] Surya noted that script-writing began in 2001, while production with the final cast began in 2002.^[3]

Release

New sold 4 million tickets worldwide. It opened well grossing 11.2 million from 120 screens on Day One.^[4] A critic from The Hindu claimed that "belonging to a genre that is rare to our cinema, "New" however, gets bogged down in a mire of duets and double entenders", but hinted at potential success citing that director "seems to have hit the bull's eye."^[5] The movie became a blockbuster. The music,composed by A.R.Rahman created waves in the audio market.the movie run housefull show for first two weeks in many theatre on its release. However, the movie was banned by the Madras High Court in August 2005, a year after it collected huge revenues in theatres.^[6]

The film was simultaneously shot in Telugu as Naani, starring Mahesh Babu and Amisha Patel in the lead roles with the Telugu version releasing two months earlier than New.^[7][8] However Naani, also directed by Surya, became a colossal failure at the box office and earned negative reviews.^[9]

Awards

Filmfare Award for Best Tamil Actress - Simran - Nominated

Controversy

Women activists in the state of Tamil Nadu demanded a ban on a film after release, which they say contained obscene sex scenes. S. J. Surya responded by claiming that the sex scenes are there because the story line requires them and described his film as "fiction laced with sex and comedy".^[10]Especially in the scene where the elder pappu (s.j suryah)&his younger friend does action of friends sign and he explains this to simran,"unga friend aganumna naan enna pananum"."Athukku muthalla neenga kai adikanum ,innoru mukiyamana vishayam kai adikum bothu satham koduthutey kai adichikanum".

In August 2005, the Madras High Court revoked the censor certificate for the film and directed the Chennai Commissioner of Police to investigate two criminal complaints registered against S. J. Surya. They ruled that the film did not provide a "clean and healthy entertainment" and that it would be failing in its duty if it did not revoke the censor certificate of the film, claiming it originally attained an "A" certificate "under questionable circumstances". Surya was arrested by city police on 22 August 2005 in connection for allegedly throwing a mobile phone at a woman censor board official in a fit of anger during the post-production of the film. According to the complainant, Vanathy Srinivasan, Surya was denied permission to add a song to the film New due to excessively obscene scenes and as a result he allegedly threw a mobile phone at her.^[11] He was late released without charge.^[12] A fresh case was launched in March 2006, with the Censor Board filing a complaint against Surya for using stills from scenes that were deleted from the film, with a poster which showed S.J. Surya resting on Simran’s cleavage resurfacing.^[13] He was subsequently arrested for the second time before being released.^[14]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman and with lyrics by Vaali, was critically well received.^[15][16] In an interview in 2001, Surya earlier stated that Deva had composed ten songs for the film, but he was later replaced by Rahman.^[17] Rahman remixed the 1964 hit Tamil song "Thottal Poo Malarum" from the movie Padagotti with completely modified orchestration, tune and singers.

References