Ghajini (2005 film)
| Ghajini | |
|---|---|
| File:Ghajini Tamil.jpg | |
| Directed by | A R Murugadoss |
| Written by | A R Murugadoss |
| Starring | Surya Sivakumar Asin Thottumkal Nayantara Pradeep Rawat Riyaz Khan |
| Cinematography | R. D. Rajasekar |
| Edited by | Anthony Gonsalvez |
| Music by | Harris Jayaraj |
| Distributed by | Sri Saravana Movies |
Release dates | September 29, 2005 |
Running time | 180 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Tamil |
| Budget | Rs.40 Crores |
Ghajini (Template:Lang-ta) is a Tamil feature film directed by A. R. Murugadoss released on September 29, 2005. The film stars Surya Sivakumar, Asin Thottumkal, Nayantara, Pradeep Rawat and Riyaz Khan. The film's main story is inspired from Memento directed by Christopher Nolan and part of the story is inspired from the film Let's Make Love directed by George Cukor. It was remade into Hindi by Murugadoss again starring Aamir Khan with Asin Thottumkal playing the same role.
The film's story revolves around a rich business entrepreneur falling in love with an ad film actress. The entrepreneur and the actress fall in love, though she does not know that he is an entrepreneur. When she successfully saves a bunch of children who were in danger, she is brutally murdered by a gang leader and the entrepreneur himself gets hit hard on the head when he tries to save his lover, eventually leading him into a state of short term memory loss. He is later studied about and helped by a psychology student to take revenge on the one who murdered his lover.
Plot
The story centers on Sanjay Ramaswamy (Surya Sivakumar),a rich businessman who owns a cell phone company named Air Voice and the events surrounding his relationship with Kalpana (Asin Thottumkal).
Kalpana, an advertisement model, meets with representatives from Sanjay's company who come to request a business agreement and ends up telling her advertisement crew that she is Sanjay's love interest - after the crew mistakenly thought that the executives were sent by Sanjay to ask for her love. She has never met him, but soon exploits popularity from her "relationship" with him and even does an interview in a magazine. Sanjay happens to hear about it on the media and wants to settle scores with her. On his way, he catches a fleeting glimpse of Kalpana (who he doesn't know yet) helping handicapped children to cross a street, and experiences love at first sight. He moves on to confront Kalpana at her advertisement studio and is pleasantly surprised to realize that she is the same helpful woman he saw a while ago. He then chooses to hide his true identity, calling himself Manohar. Kalpana eventually falls in love with him without realizing he's Sanjay.
Once, while on a train to Mumbai, Kalpana saves a group of young girls from abuse by a group of goons led by Lakshman (Pradeep Rawat). After a few days, the same goons come to Kalpana's house in order to avenge their embarrassment. Incidentally, Sanjay arrives at the scene and fights off the goons, but during the ensuing fight, Kalpana is murdered. The irony showcased is that Kalpana never finds out that he is Sanjay. Lakshman then strikes the downcast Sanjay on his head severely with a metal rod. Sanjay survives the blow, but suffers from a short-term amnesia. At any given time, he does not remember anything that happened more than 15 minutes back, although he frequently has flashbacks of Kalpana's murder. He determines to take revenge on those responsible for Kalpana's death. The rest of the story is about how Sanjay, along with a medical college student Chitra (Nayantara), goes about finding Lakshman and the goons.
Medical student Chitra is interested in doing a project on Sanjay in order to study human brain. But her professor does not allow her to do so because this was a legal case. She had nothing to do but to accept his advice. In the mean while Sanjay started killing two of the murderers. He used to keep a camera with him which beeps after 15 mins to keep in his memory that he has a camera with him. He takes pictures of those whom he interacts and make notes on the photograph about his relationship with them. He keeps photographs of his apartment and the street which he shows to the cab-driver to indicate his home. He also makes tattoos of the name of the murderers, their phone no. etc.
Cast
- Surya Sivakumar as Sanjay Ramaswamy. Surya plays a rich business man, an owner of a mobile phone service provider company. The character Sanjay Ramaswamy was critically acclaimed and Surya was awarded a Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor.
- Asin Thottumkal as Kalpana. Asin had won hearts of many during the year of 2005 through her role as Kalpana, a charming, bubbly girl who acts in television advertisements. After her successful roles in Tamil cinema from M. Kumaran son of Mahalakshmi and Ullam Ketkumae, she saw her first commercial success.
- Nayantara as Chithra. Nayantara played a curious medical college student, Chithra, who is given permission along with her classmates to study the case of Sanjay Ramasamy. She appears the most throughout the film as she unravels Sanjay's mysteries and past life and goes places to find more information about the psychiatric patient she wants to meet.
- Pradeep Rawat in dual roles as Lakshman and his twin. Pradeep plays the main antagonist Lakshman who brutally murders Kalpana for insulting him and ruining his plans. At the climax, when Sanjay is challenged to face-off Lakshman, he is introduced to his twin brother. In the confusion, Sanjay is told by Chithra to kill both the brothers as a benefit to not just him but to society as a whole.
- Riyaz Khan as a police investigator. Riyaz Khan plays the supporting role of a police inspector who investigates the murders by Sanjay Ramaswamy. He also learns about some of Sanjay's past life.
Production
Casting
To play the lead role of this film A. R. Murugadoss approached some 12 other actors with some being Ajith Kumar, R. Madhavan, Joseph Vijay, and Vikram but all rejected due to date problems. Initially, kuntham accepted the role and the film was to be titled Mirattal and also photo session took place but subsequently dropped out. Then the role finally went to Surya Sivakumar who grabbed it and it turned out to be the biggest commercial successes in his career.
Meera Jasmine was the first choice to play the role of Kalpana. But she dropped the project and later replaced by Asin Thottumkal which helped her to establish as the top lead actress in Kollywood.[1]
Plagiarism
- The movie is based on the American movie Memento which is directed by Christopher Nolan, adapted from his brother Jonathan Nolan's short story Memento Mori. It stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a former insurance fraud investigator searching for the man he believes raped and killed his wife during a burglary. Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia, which he contracted from severe head trauma during the attack on his wife. The concepts like writing notes behind instant Polaroid photographs, tattooing facts on body etc. are inspired from this movie. However, the director has added Indian elements to the story and changed the narrative to straight.Ghajini is in essence and spirit a total plagirized version of Memento.
- The design of Sanjay Ramasamy's (played by Surya Sivakumar) tattoos is notably similar in both concept and appearance to that of Japanese rock musician Miyavi. Consequently, this also holds true in the 2008 Bollywood remake of the same name.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack features 5 songs composed by Harris Jayaraj, with lyrics by N. Muthukumar.
- Oru Maalai (5:54) - Karthik
- X Machi (4:12) - Mathangi & Nakul
- Sutrum Vizhi (5:18) - Sriram Parthasarathy & Bombay Jayashree
- Rahathulla (4:50) - Anupama
- Rangola Ola (4:26) - Shankar Mahadevan & Sujatha Mohan
Awards
2006 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards
- Won - Best Film — Ghajini[2]
- Won - Best Actor — Surya Sivakumar[2]
- Won - Best Actress — Asin Thottumkal[3]
- Won - Best Editing — Anthony[citation needed]
- Won - Filmfare Best Male Playback Singer — Karthik
Reception
The movie had a very large opening. It managed to sustain the tremendous opening, and went on to be Surya's biggest hit at the time.[dubious – discuss] It collected 49 crores revenue to make it one of the third highest grossing Tamil-language films of 2005 preceded by Anniyan and Chandramukhi.
The Hindi version of Ghajini with pre-release movie rights becoming hot property Ghajini has earned an estimated Rs 90 crore by selling its distribution rights. Last year, Om Shanti Om was the top grosser in distribution rights, it sold the rights to Eros for a reported Rs 73 crore.