Jay Jay

Plot

Jagan (R. Madhavan) and Jamuna (Amogha) meet in a shopping mall in Chennai. They like each other and spend a day chatting in the coffee shop. Jamuna, a believer in destiny, writes down her address and telephone number on a Rs.100 note and makes the payment at the cafe declaring that if the note comes back to Jagan then it means that he was destined to meet her. He tries hard to trace the note but in vain. Jamuna goes back to Kolkata. Meanwhile, Seema (Pooja), who was rescued by Madhavan from some thugs, has a crush on him. Jagan unable to find Jamuna, agrees to marry Seema.Finally Jagan manages to get Jamuna address on the eve of her wedding and unites with her.

Production

In late 2000, Producer Ravichandran signed on Saran to make a film titled J!J! with Vijay in dual lead roles as the characters Jaishankar and Jesudas. The team were also ready to approach Aishwarya Rai to play the lead role, before the venture was shelved and the producer and director moved on to make a different film with the same title. R. Madhavan was signed on and the film was later titled Jay Jay, after the two lead characters Jagan and Jamuna. The film was said to feature Mandira Bedi in the lead role, though she was later left out due to unknown reasons. Then Saran wanted to cast Simran for the role as they worked together before. But her unavailablity led him to find another actress for the cast. Priyanka Kothari made her debut in the film under the stage name of Amogha, while the film also marked the debut of another heroine, Pooja, who had already signed up to feature in Jeeva's Ullam Ketkumae at the time. Thappu Thaalangal Sunderraj, a popular Kannada actor, returned to the Tamil screen after a gap of 15 years, while Ceylon Manohar also too returned to acting after 23 years and played the main villain. Malavika Avinash of Anni fame and Giri from the Sahana serial also made their entry into the big screen, with Giri playing the role of Madhavan's friend. Bengali actress Sharmila Ghosh was also in the cast. Reemma Sen, shot at the Visakhapatnam Railway Station with 40 models from Mumbai for a song in the film. The song was the first venture of Suchitra as a playback singer. Two further songs were picturised in Greece, with the team conducting shoots in the island of Milos and at Santornini. A week's shoot was also heldat the Institute for the Dumb and Deaf at Ramavaram, while multiple locations in Kolkata were chosen to depict a sequence in the city.

Release

The film opened to mixed reviews, with a critic form The Hindu noting "Saran seems to have been carried away by the protracted route of the 100-rupee note and the hide and seek game between the lovers that he lets his screenplay go haywire." Another reviewer noted "The movie also reminds of Kadhal Kottai at many instances but Jay Jay has not made itself as poignant as this movie. The costumes and the music are the only consolation for the producer of this boring and fruitless movie."

Despite the mixed reviews, the film ran for one eighty days across Chennai. The film was later dubbed and released under the same name in Telugu by producers Seetharam Reddy and Hema Babu.

Soundtrack

The Soundtrack of the film was composed by Bharathwaj. The lyrics for the film were written by Vairamuthu.