Vaanathaippola


Vaanathaippola is a 2000 Indian Tamil-language drama film written and directed by Vikraman. The film features Vijayakanth in dual lead role, Meena, Prabhu Deva, Livingston, Kausalya and Anju Aravind. Produced by Venu Ravichandran under Oscar Films, the film has a score and soundtrack composed by S. A. Rajkumar and cinematography handled by Arthur A. Wilson. The film tells the story of a caring brother who makes sacrifices to ensure his three younger brothers succeed in life.
The film opened to positive reviews and box office success in January 2000, and went on to win the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment the following year. Vaanathaippola subsequently went on to become the most commercially successful film in Tamil, running for over 250 days in theatres. Furthermore, the success of the film led to two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, as well as several remakes in other Indian regional languages such as Telugu, Kannada, Bhojpuri and Bengali. The film was remade in Telugu as Maa Annayya with Rajasekhar in the title role. The Kannada remake was titled Yajamana. The Bhojpuri remake was titled Pariwaar and in Bengali as Sneher Protidan.

Plot

Vellaichaamy thinks the world of his three brothers, even giving up marriage when he learns that the woman he loves plans to send them to a hostel after the wedding. The brothers live with their grandmother. Vellaichamy works hard to raise them, and they too reciprocate his love and affection. The eldest of the three, Muthu, is a cook in a small hotel. When Vellachamy learns that Muthu is in love with his childhood playmate Gowri, he goes to the city to his friend with the marriage proposal, only to be insulted. Circumstances bring Muthu to the city, to Gowri's palatial bungalow where he works as a cook. Gowri is arrogant and rude until she realizes that Muthu is her childhood pal. She does all the wooing and persuades her father to get her married to Muthu.
Gowri expects fireworks when she enters Muthu's rustic home, but she happily blends into the sugary ambience. Her father, a business tycoon, does make some unpleasant noise in the background, but gives up soon enough. Shanmugam, the second, who is training to be an inspector, is married to Vellaichamy's friend's daughter Sumathi. Initially, she too is rude and insulting to Vellachamy, but due to her astrological reasons made her to speak like that, she too turns out to be a good lady.
The third brother Selvakumar is a doctor. Selvam has a girlfriend Nandini, a talkative and vivacious girl. But she has just to meet Vellachamy and she becomes one more addition to the 'love Vellachamy' brigade. She, however, turns out to be the daughter of Vellachamy's enemy Dharmalingam. Dharmalingam refuses to get Nandini married to Selvam. But apart from taking a promise from Vellachamy that he would leave the village once the marriage was over, he gives his consent. Nandini's cousin kidnaps her, but Muthu saves her. Vellachamy returns and reunites with his family..

Cast

In 1999, Vikraman met Aascar Ravichandran who earlier worked as a distributor for two decades, he was in interestered in film production and asked scripts like Poove Unakkaga and Suryavamsam. Vikraman narrated the script to Ravichandran and he then advised Vikraman to direct this script with Vijayakanth, and had to convince the director to stick with his decision. Meena was cast to portray the female lead. Simran rejected the offer to play opposite Prabhudeva and Kaushalya finally landed in the project.

Release

The film opened in January 2000 to predominantly positive reviews from critics. The Hindu gave the film a favourable review, remarking that "Vijaykanth excels in comedy and Ramesh Kanna has all the makings of a good comedian", "S. N. Lakshmi as the grandmother is hilarious and adds levity to the film as a whole" and that "Prabhu Deva and Kousalya form an energetic, sprightly pair." The critic also noted that "sentiment and sibling love fail to appeal after a point, when they reach implausible levels". Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan in its review mentioned "The film highlights the theme of everyone living with unity without any troubles The drawback in this film is there is no villain to the hero character and hence after some time the film struggles to hold attention without any twists". New Straits Times wrote "This movie will appeal to those who love family dramas, especially about brotherly love".
Vaanathaippola subsequently went on to become the most commercially successful film in Tamil, running for over 250 days in cinemas. The film secured a hit for the team and prompted Vijayakanth to star in further films. The film went on to win the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment the following year. Furthermore, the success of the film led to two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, winning Best Film for Ravichandran and Best Director for Vikraman.

Remakes

The film was remade in Telugu as Maa Annayya with Rajasekhar in the title roles, while a Kannada version Yejamana featured Vishnuvardhan, Radha Bharathi who directed Prashanth's debut film Vaigasi Poranthachu has directed the Kannada version along with Sheshadri. Kannada version was a successful venture at the box office. Telugu version declared as a super hit at the boxoffice. In 2009, Vikraman and Vijayakanth came back together to make another family drama film titled Mariyadhai, though failed to replicate the success of Vaanathaippola.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film was composed by S. A. Rajkumar, while lyrics written by Ra. Ravishankar, Pa. Vijay, Viveka and Na. Muthukumar, was well received by the audience. G. Dhananjayan in his book Pride of Tamil Cinema: 1931 to 2013 wrote that the film's success can "also attributed to its superhit songs". The song "Engal Veetil Ella Naalum" is based on "Dil Deewana" from the Hindi film Daag.