Aethirree

Ethiree (English: Enemy) is a 2004 Indian Tamil action comedy film, directed by popular director K. S. Ravikumar. The film, starring Madhavan, Sadha, Vivek, Kanika, Rahman and Delhi Ganesh in pivotal roles, has musical score by Yuvan Shankar Raja. It was released in April 2004 to positive critical response. The film was dubbed into Telugu and released as Bottle Mani, before it was remade in Telugu as State Rowdy, which stars Shivaji, Mallika Kapoor and Madhu Shalini, replacing Madhavan, Sadha and Kanika, respectively, and released in 2007.

Plot

Natarajan (Delhi Ganesh) is a Brahmin house-owner near the Parthasarathy Temple looking for a right tenant for the upper portion of his house. He is very protective of his college going beautiful daughter Gayathri (Kanika). Since he often fears that the prospective tenant might romance with his daughter he filters all the people who come asking for the house. He rents out the house to five bachelor students who pretend to be good.They start showing their character soon by taking away roofs and watching her. On the advice of ‘Auto’ (Vivek), Natarajan brings Subramani (Madhavan) who charades himself as ‘Bottle Mani’, a dreaded thug to vacate the students. Incidentally Mani, who stays with his Jailor uncle (R. Sundarrajan), was thrown out of his house as he refuses to marry his daughter. Taking advantage of the situation, Mani befriends the five boys and starts staying with them.

Priya (Sadha) is the daughter of a wealthy gangster (Fefsi Vijayan) and she is engaged to an affluent sadist ACP (Rahman). On the day of marriage Priya comes to know that her fiancé is already married and had murdered his first wife in a sadistic manner but her father forces her to marry him to cover up his illegal activities. She consumes poison just before the wedding time but was mistakenly kidnapped by Mani and Auto. Now Priya becomes one more addition in the upstairs portion while the five try to rape her he saves her. The rest of the story is how they fall for each other and how Mani saves her from the clutches of her dad and her fiancé and marries her at the end.

Cast and crew

Cast

• Madhavan as Subramani / 'Bottle' Mani
• Sadha as Priya
• Rahman as Raghavan
• Kanika as Gayathri Natarajan
• Vivek as 'Auto' Sampath
• Delhi Ganesh as Nataraja Iyer
• FEFSI' Vijayan
• R. Sundarrajan as Subramani's uncle
• Manobala as Seshagopalan
• Madhan Bob
• Bosskey
• KS Ravikumar (Cameo)
• Vasu Vikram
• Kanal Kannan
• Karthik
• Ramesh
• Prakash Dakshinamurthy
• Karun
• Koti

Crew

• Screenplay, Direction: K. S. Ravikumar
• Production: G. V. Prasad
• Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja
• Cinematography: Ashok Rajan
• Editing: K. Thanigachalam
• Story, Dialogue: Kamalesh Kumar
• Art direction: G. K.
• Fights: Kanal Kannan
• Choreography: Raju Sundaram and Kalyan
• Co-Direction: S. Dayalan and H. R. Krishnamohan
• Stills: K. L. Ramani
• Costumes: V. Moorthy and Sarita Madhavan
• Lyrics: 'Kavignar' Kaalidhasan, Pa. Vijay, Na. Muthukumar, Kabilan, Victordoss, Premji Amaran and Swathi
• Executive Production: K. V. Subramaniam

Production

The film marked the first collaboration of Madhavan and K. S. Ravikumar, it was also Madhavan's first pairing with Sadha. Kanika of Five Star was selected as second heroine. Kanika replaced Nikita Thukral in the role.^[1] Rahman was selected for negative role thus marked his comeback to Tamil and also dubbed his own voice for the first time.

The film was launched on 28 November 2003 at Prasad Studios with Dhanush, Srikanth, Director Saran, among the seniors, comedian Nagesh, Vinu Chakravarthy and Vadivukkarasi, participated and offered their good wishes for the project.^[2] A song was shot at AVM Studios and Prasad studios with three sets built by art director G. K. Some crucial scenes were shot at Triplicane, Chennai while a fight scene was shot in studios with a set resembling a market.^[3]

Soundtrack

The music was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, teaming up with director K. S. Ravikumar for the first and only time so far and was also his first time with Madhavan. The soundtrack was released in the first week of April 2004, featuring 7 tracks with lyrics written by 'Kavignar' Kaalidhasan, Pa. Vijay, Na. Muthukumar, Kabilan, Viktordoss and Premji Amaran and Swathi.

Box office

• The film was an average hit at the box office.
• The film was remade in Telugu as State Rowdy starring Shivaji, Mallika Kapoor and Madhu Shalini in the roles acted by Madhavan, Sadha and Kanika respectively.

References

External links

• Aethiree at the Internet Movie Database