Unakkum Enakkum


Unakkum Enakkum, also known by its former title Something Something... Unakkum Enakkum, is a 2006 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy film directed by M. Raja. A remake of Telugu film Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, it stars Jayam Ravi and Trisha, reprising her role from the original, in the lead roles and an ensemble cast, including Richa Pallod, veterans Prabhu, Bhagyaraj, Geetha and comedians Santhanam and Ganja Karuppu in supporting roles. The score and soundtrack was composed by Devi Sri Prasad, who also scored the music in the original version of the film, whilst cinematography was handled by A. Venkatesh and editing by S. Suraj Kavee.

Plot

The film starts with Muthupandi sitting alone in his jail cell when the police officer meets him. Muthupandi is getting released the next day and expresses his feelings of seeing his married sister, and his niece or nephew. On the officer's request, Muthupandi tells his story.
Muthupandi takes care of his only sister Kavitha, following their mother’s early death when they were young. Muthupandi lives in a village and brings up his sister with a lot of care and affection. In the meantime, Muthupandi has an aversion towards arrogant, rich people in the society, as his father, who was rich, abandoned his mother, following which she died.
Santhosh is the only of son of a London-based business tycoon named Krishnan and Janaki. He comes to Chennai along with Janaki to attend the wedding of his cousin Lalitha alias Lalli wedding. Lalli is Kavitha's best friend, and she too comes to Chennai a few days before the wedding. Santhosh, a fun-loving person, develops an attraction immediately after seeing Kavitha, but Kavitha does not reciprocate, and she maintains a distance with Santhosh.
Slowly, Santhosh and Kavitha become good friends, and love blossoms between them. Shalini alias Shalu is the daughter of Santhosh’s uncle Ravichandran's friend Jayadhalapradhaban alias JP, and she too loves Santhosh. Janaki gets furious knowing about Santhosh and Kavitha’s love affair, as she thinks that Kavitha is poor and from low societal status. On the day of Lalli’s wedding when they send Santhosh away, Janaki and JP speak ill of Kavitha and ask her leave the place before Santhosh returns. When Kavitha is about to leave the place, Muthupandi suddenly arrives and is shocked to see her condition. He gets angry, scolds everyone there for hurting his sister, and also takes her with him back to the village. Santhosh, who is still upset as Kavitha left him, learns from Lalli what happened. He goes to the room where Kavitha stayed and finds her horse clay doll, her favourite doll that her brother made and modified by Santhosh after Shalu broke it out of anger and jealousy. While waiting for a connecting flight in Dubai, Santhosh escapes from his mother and goes back to Chennai, in the idea of heading to Kavitha's village. When he arrives in the village, everyone gets shocked. Muthupandi does not like Santhosh seeing Janaki’s attitude and thinks that he too will ill-treat Kavitha.
Santhosh apologizes to Muthupandi for the misunderstandings and requests to get Kavitha married to him. Now Muthupandi comes with a challenge. He allots an acre of agricultural land to Santhosh and asks him to do farming there. Santhosh, in order to prove his love for Kavitha, challenges him that he would cultivate one more bundle in the end. When Muthupandi agrees, Santhosh starts work, although he does not know farming. Santhosh tries hard to do farming, and somehow, he manages to learn cultivation. Krishnan comes to India to confront Kavitha and Muthpandi and bring back Santhosh. He sees Santhosh living a typical farmer's life, and eating plain rice with chilli powder, he gets triggered. He tries to convince Santhosh and asks him to come back to London. When Santhosh says that he believes in his love for Kavitha and does not wish to return back, Krishnan goes to confront Kavitha, who was the cause for his son's condition.
Krishnan overhears Kavitha's conversation with her servant and realizes that she too had been sleeping on the floor despite cold conditions and proper bed and eating the same food as Santhosh. Krishnan feels overwhelmed thinking about the young lovers and blesses Kavitha. He also tells her that their true love would win and asks her to stay strong.
Meanwhile, JP and Shalu want Santhosh to lose so that he would return. They seek help from a local goon named "Mark" Mayandi to distract Santhosh. Also, there is Sivaji, a local rich man in the village. His son wants to marry Kavitha at any cost. The cultivation is completed, and rice grains are bundled in both Santhosh and Muthupandi’s farms.
One night, when Sivaji's son tries to burn Santhosh's land, it backfires, and Mayandi is gets amidst the chaos and gets burned on his back. He also sets the shed on fire where Santhosh is staying. Everyone tries to extinguish the fire and Santhosh rescues Muthupandi from a near accident due to the fire. Also, he saves Kavitha’s horse doll. On the day before the counting, Mayan takes a few bundles from Santhosh and places it along with Muthupandi’s so that Santhosh will lose the challenge. The next day, Muthupandi reveals to his guardian, a railway manager, that he added extra bundles in Santhosh's so that he can win. He also reveals that Santhosh is the right match for his sister. Santhosh wins the challenge as he has cultivated more compared to Muthupandi, following which he agrees for their wedding.
Sivaji and his son get angry upon seeing this. His son plans to forcefully marry Kavitha. JP and Mayan also get angry, and they plot to murder Muthupandi. They kidnap Kavitha and beat up Santhosh and Muthupandi. A fight erupts in which Sivaji’s son is killed by Santhosh, who saves Kavitha, while JP and Sivaji are violently defeated by Muthupandi. When police arrives at the spot, Muthupandi takes the blame for the murder and requests Santhosh to marry Kavitha and lead a happy life. He gets jailed for seven years.
When Muthupandi completes telling his story, the officer gets surprised for such a man. When he asks him why is he telling the truth a day before completing his sentence, Muthupandi says that he wants his sister to stay happy forever with the man she loves. The officer feels proud of him and blesses him.
When Muthupandi gets released, he gets shocked upon seeing Santhosh and Kavitha unmarried and waiting for him in wedding attire. Santhosh and Kavitha were waiting to conduct the marriage only after Muthupandi is released. Muthupandi feels proud of them. Also, Janaki realizes her mistake and apologizes to Muthupandi. In the end, Santhosh and Kavitha are married. Also, it is hinted that Muthupandi and Valli, their servant, develop love for each other.

Cast

After two successful remakes, Raja opted to remake successful Telugu film Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana with his brother Ravi in lead role alongside Trisha reprised her role from original. Prabhu was signed on to play Trisha's brother after unsuccessful negotiations with several other actors. Mohan was offered the role of Jayam Ravi's father, but he declined the offer and the role went to K. Bhagyaraj.
The film was initially titled Something Something Unakkum Enakkum, but removed the English prefixes to exploit the Tamil Nadu Government's rule of entertainment tax exemption for films with Tamil titles.

Music

The film has six songs composed by Devi Sri Prasad who retained all the tunes from the original Telugu film.

Release

The film opened to positive reviews in July 2006, with Behindwoods.com noting Raja "should be applauded for hand picking a cast that makes the movie worth watching", while remarking that "it has everything that can well set the box office collections soaring". Likewise Sify added the film was "like a saccharine coated candy floss champion that is superbly packaged" and The Hindu stated "Raja has a way of making remakes successful". The venture went on to become profitable, and scored the third straight success for the actor-director duo.