Kaadhal 2004 Indian Tamil-language romantic dramafilm based on a true story, directed by Balaji Sakthivel, starring Bharath and Sandhya in her feature film debut. It was produced by S. Shankar and featured music composed by Joshua Sridhar. The film opened to critical acclaim and was a high commercial success. Upon release, the film was dubbed into Telugu as Premisthe. It was remade in Kannada as Cheluvina Chittara in 2007, in Bengali as Chirodini Tumi Je Amar in 2008, in Bengali Bangladesh as Nogor Mastan in 2015, in Marathi as Ved Laavi Jeeva in 2010, in Nepali as Manjari in 2013 and in Punjabi as Ramta Jogi in 2015.
Plot
Murugan is a diligent scooter mechanic in Madurai and life goes on smoothly for the young man until a rich student Aishwarya sets an eye on him. The infatuation reaches a dangerous level when she coaxes Murugan to take her from the constraint of her family, who have other plans about her future. Initially, Murugan hesitates to love her as she belongs to a rich family but later understands her true love and reciprocates. The couple knows that Aishwarya's family will not agree for the wedding and decide to run away to Chennai. Murugan's friend Stephen helps them in their hour of crisis and the lovers unite in marriage. But Aishwariya's family dotes on her and is not going to give up so easily. The family tracks down the couple and reaches Chennai to meet them. But the family members pretend as if they had agreed for the wedding and convince them to return to Madurai along with them. On the way back to Madurai, the family members take the couple to their farmland where Aishwarya's relatives have gathered. They all beat Murugan and Aishwarya's father wants her to remove the mangalyam tied by Murugan. Aishwarya fears that if she does not obey her father, then Murugan will be killed and also Aishwarya agrees to marry another man to save Murugan's life. Murugan is heavily beaten and let go of the place. After a few years, Aishwarya while travelling with her husband and her child, comes across Murugan where she finds him as a mentally deranged beggar roaming near a traffic signal. Aishwarya faints realizing it is Murugan and gets admitted to the nearby hospital. At night she runs from the hospital to the same signal in search of Murugan and she finds him sitting over there. Aishwarys cries to Murugan and feels bad that she was responsible for his pathetic situation. Aishwarya's husband also comes to the spot and understands his wife's situation. He admits Murugan in a mental health centre and also takes care of him. The movie ends with title cards mentioning that this is a true incident narrated by the girl's husband to the director during a train journey which prompted him to make a film.
After the average response of his debut film Samurai, Balaji was supposed to direct again Vikram in a new venture which however got shelved. During the shoot of Anniyan, Balaji narrated the plot of Kaadhal to his mentor Shankar who agreed to produce the film after hearing the script. The film was initially turned down by actors Dhanush and Shanthanu Bhagyaraj, before Balaji Sakthivel consulted Shankar's advice for the lead role. Telugu actor Ram also auditioned for the lead role but was unsuccessful. After considering both Manikandan and Bharath from the cast of Boys, Shankar chose the latter to star in his production. For the female lead, the makers held discussions with Ileana D'Cruz and then Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, but the latter's father was reluctant to let her become an actress at the time. The team then picked Saranya Nag was in Class IX, when cinematographer Vijay Milton referred her on to Balaji Sakthivel. She was initially considered to play the heroine in the film, but the role was later handed to Sandhya, after the director felt she looked too young. Saranya thus made her debut in a supporting role in the film as Sandhya's friend. Dhandapani from Madurai was selected to play Sandhya's father. He became popular with this film and adopted the film's title as Kaadhal Dhandapani. Though the story was shown to have taken place in Madurai, shooting was done in Dindigul and Madurai. The school where Sandhya studies is St.Joseph's Girls Higher Secondary School Dindigul.
Soundtrack
The film has eight songs composed by Joshua Sridhar.
Box office
Produced on a budget of ₹1.25 crores the film was a surprise blockbuster recovering almost its entire budget from Chennai distribution territory.
