Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram (transl. Azhagu Sundaram alias Parattai) is a 2007 Indian Tamil-language crime action film directed by Suresh Krissna. The film stars Dhanush, Meera Jasmine and Archana. It is a remake of the 2005 Kannada film Jogi. It revolves around a woman who comes to the city from her village in search of her presumably lost son. The film was released on 27 April 2007 and unlike its original version was declared a box-office bomb.[1]
Azhagu Sundaram is a village bumpkin who comes from Tirunelveli to Chennai to earn money to buy gold bangles for his beloved mother Meenakshi. He gets entangled in the big bad world of dons and goondas and is unable to get back home to see his mother. On the other hand, Meenakshi lands up in Chennai in search of her son without even knowing his address or whereabouts. Meenakshi bumps into Shwetha, a journalism student who takes pity on her, takes her home, and promises to help her find her son. Azhagu is now known as Parattai in Chennai and is taken under the wings of Khader Bhai, a tea shop owner. Parattai is forced to take the aruval as gang wars erupt and single-handedly he wipes out Deva, Kesavan and Suri, all dreaded criminals in the city. On parallel lines, he never sees his mother and finally accompanies her dead body to the crematorium, thinking it is an orphan's corpse. He dances with others, offers flowers, and finally after her body is charred, he realises that it was his mother.
Rajinikanth, who had watched the preview show of Kannada film Jogi, expressed his interest to remake the film in Tamil with his son-in-law, actor Dhanush. The film director Keyaar bought the remake rights of this film.[2]Prem, the director of the original, was approached to direct the remake, but declined as he did not want to pander to the lead actor's "larger-than-life stature" at the cost of realism.[3] Dance choreographer Raju Sundaram was selected to direct the film but later he was replaced by Suresh Krissna.[4] Sundaram opted out of the film due to his assignments as choreographer.[5] The film was launched in 31 August 2006 and the function was attended by director Shankar, Vijay, Asin, Rajathi Ammal, wife of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, Rama Narayanan, Director Association chief S A Chandrasekhar and the honchos of Theatres Owners Association among others took part in the celebrations.[6][7][8] Archana, who was part of the films directed by Balu Mahendra agreed to play the mother of Dhanush.[9] To portray his role in the film, Dhanush grew his hair out.[10] The film was titled as "Parattai" with prefix Azhagu Sundaram being his character name in the film. Incidentally, Parattai was the famous character played by Rajinikanth in the film 16 Vayathinile (1977).[11] One of the songs were shot at Senji fort.[12]
Soundtrack
The music was composed by Gurukiran.[13]Yuvan Shankar Raja who initially agreed to compose the music, later backed out owing to commitments. He was later replaced by Gurukiran who composed the original film making his debut in Tamil films.[11] Gurukiran retained the soundtrack of Jogi for this version too.
Sify wrote, "Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram is a steamy sob story harping on mother-son sentiments' reminding you of 60's tearjerker's laced with lot of violence and Rajnikanth's favourite director Suresh Krishna's presentation and direction is old fashioned, to put it mildly".[14] Sriram Iyer of Rediff wrote, "Director Suresh Krishna has relied on melodrama to make up for the story's deficiencies. Poor performances add to the film's low points".[15] Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu wrote "`Parattai ... ' is remake of the Kannada `Jogi.' The original was a hit you hear, and that sets you wondering!"[16] Lajjavathi of Kalki praised the acting of Dhanush and Livingston, music and cinematography but felt Krishna's screenplay lacked speed and concluded the suspense of whether mother and child will meet up to a certain point starts to creep up. The director who offered the affection may have added a little ecstasy.[17]
