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Five Star
Five Star
	DVD cover
Directed by	Susi Ganesan
Written by	Susi Ganesan
Produced by	Mani Ratnam; G. Srinivasan
Starring	Prasanna; Kanika; Krishna; Sandhya; Mangai; Karthik
Cinematography	Ravi Varman
Edited by	A. Sreekar Prasad
Music by	Sriram Parasuram; Anuradha Sriram
Production; company	Madras Talkies
Release date	4 October 2002;
Country	India
Language	Tamil

5 Star is a 2002 Indian Tamil-language coming-of-age film directed by Susi Ganesan in his debut, and produced by Madras Talkies. The film stars newcomers Prasanna, Kanika, Krishna, Sandhya, Mangai, and Karthik. The film was remade in Telugu as Life Style.

Plot

The story focuses on five friends, Prabhu, Elango, Sundar, Indra, and Priya, at the Madras Institute of Technology, who want to remain friends throughout their lifespan and hope to join the same company after graduation.

During a vacation, Elango goes home, where he is forced to marry his old-fashioned cousin, Eshwari, by his tough disciplinarian father. Once back in college, he hides the fact about his marriage from his friends, but later the marriage becomes public when relatives of Eshwari come to visit Elango. While their dream to work together becomes true, Elango alone gets a transfer to Bombay. The friends fight but later reunite.

Before Elango goes to Bombay, the friends force him to visit his wife and put him on a train. But Elango manages to get off the train, and from there, he loses touch with his friends and family in the village.

The friends part, and six years later, Prabu and Sundar come back to join Priya and Indra in Chennai. On the train journey back, Prabu meets Elango's wife, Eshwari. Prabu falls in love with Eshwari without realising who she is. Eventually, he and his friends find out the truth about Eshwari, who is waiting with hopes of her husband returning. The four friends decided to help Eshwari find the whereabouts of Elango. One day, Prabu finds out that Elango might be in Switzerland. Prabu decides to go to Switzerland. Later, he finds Elango, but to his shock, Elango has a child and is married to a Swiss woman. At the same time, in India, Elango's father commits suicide. Prabu returns to India and learns that everyone knows about Elango's marriage.

Eshwari decides to marry again and move on with life rather than thinking about Elango. Her village people decide to marry her off to one of her relatives, but she threatens them, telling them off and stating that she will decide her own life and no one is going to control her life any more. The story ends with all four friends and their husbands and wives, along with Eshwari, enjoying an evening at the beach.

Cast

Prasanna as Prabhu
Kanika as Eshwari
Krishna as Elango
Sandhya Prakash as Priya
Mangai as Indra
Karthick as Sundar
Vijayan as Elango's father
Chitti Babu as Train Ticket Examiner (TTR)
Srilekha Rajendran as Flower seller
Dr. P. Mannar Jawahar as Professor

Production

In March 1999, Susi Ganesan was able to convince producer Shanti Thiagarajan to fund his first feature film, after he left Mani Ratnam's team of assistant directors. The film was initially titled Thithikkum Thee and was to feature to Murali in the lead role of a firefighter. In return for producing his first film, Shanti Thiagarajan requested Ganesan to also work on another film starring her son Prashanth in the lead role and consequently, Ganeshan finalised a script titled Pepsi: Generation Next.^[1] In a turn of events, Prashanth replaced Murali in the director's first project, which was retitled as Virumbugiren in early 2000. Pepsi was later supposed to star Madhavan in a lead role, but he eventually did not feature as the team opted for newcomers.^[2] Since the title Pepsi was registered by Jeeva, Ganesan ended up renaming his film.^[3]

For the heroine, Ganesan spotted her on a magazine cover page and insisted on her performing the lead female role in his second feature film. Divya eventually entered the Film industry, accepting the offer, while her name was changed to Kanika. She completed the entire film during her summer holidays, since she was a student.^[4] Prasanna who was doing college at that time saw an ad on Vijay TV that Madras Talkies was auditioning for newcomers, he applied and got selected.^[5] For other lead roles, Karthik, the son of a Tirupur businessman, Krishna, an earlier assistant to director Rajiv Menon, Sandhya, a model and also a former Ms. Chennai, and Mangaikarasi, a dancer based in Sweden. The film marked the debut of cameraman Ravi Varman in Tamil cinema. Singer Anuradha Sriram and her husband Sriram Parasuram made their debut as music directors with this film. The film had a 10-day shooting schedule at the M.I.T. College where Susi Ganesan had studied, followed by a 15-day schedule in Switzerland where some scenes and two songs were shot.^[6]

Soundtrack

Music was composed by Sriram Parasuram and Anuradha Sriram.^{[citation needed]}

Song	Artist(s)
"Thiru Thiruda"	Srinivas, Sujatha
"Sunday"	Karthik, Mathangi, Nitish, Jayashree, Arsith
"Engirindhu Vandhayada"	Chandana Bala
"Oru Manam"
"Engalukku"	Instrumental
"Rayile"	P. Unnikrishnan
"Five Star"	Anuradha Sriram, Shubha Mudgal, Timmy, Chinmayi
"Engalukku"	Devan, Kanika

Reception

Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "Some young promising talent, a story centered round youth and their aspirations, the fulfillment of some, the disillusionment of others, stylised takings and a sincere attempt to give an entertainer sans vulgarity and double entendres, makes 'Five Star' a clean, fairly engaging family entertainer."^[7] Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu wrote, "Susi Ganesan's youthful, hard-hitting dialogue and a fairly neat screenplay are notable aspects of the film — the story and direction, also by him are done with a difference".^[8]

References

^ "Assistant competitors". Rediff.com. 26 March 1999. Archived from the original on 8 February 2018. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
^ "A shot in the arm". Cinematoday2itgo. Archived from the original on 23 August 2012. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
^ "A tale of two names". The Hindu. 18 October 2002. Archived from the original on 21 September 2023. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
^ Warrier, Shobha (24 May 2007). "The voice behind Shriya in Sivaji". Rediff.com. Archived from the original on 16 September 2015. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
^ Warrier, Shobha (23 November 2005). "Meet Prasanna of Tamil films". Rediff.com. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
^ Mannath, Malini (2 September 2002). "Five Star". Chennai Online. Archived from the original on 19 November 2002. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
^ Mannath, Malini (11 October 2002). "Five Star". Chennai Online. Archived from the original on 11 March 2005. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
^ Rangarajan, Malathi (10 October 2002). "Five Star". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 1 February 2003. Retrieved 2 May 2022.