Kaathala Kaathala

Plot

Ramalingam (Kamal Haasan) & Sundaralingam (Prabhu Deva) are simpletons who are always in search of ways to earn a quick buck. Sundaralingam is an artist with good talent, while Ramalingam is the business brain who brings in money, mostly by fraudulent means. They fall in love — Sundaralingam with Janaki (Rambha) and Ramalingam with Sundari (Soundarya). Both are students of art.

Janaki's father Paramasivam (M. S. Viswanathan) rejects Sundaralingam. Sundari convinces Janaki to write letters falsifying Sundaralingam's rise to fame and big money, eventually lying that Janaki & Sundaralingam now have a son, in order to win over the parents with sentiment. Janaki's dad, worried that his grandson might be brought up poorly, arrives at a mansion that has been set up to look like Sundaralingam's new property, along with her mom Parbathy (Srividya). Meanwhile, Sundari's dad Balamurugan (Moulee) also makes an unexpected stop there to check on his daughter.

A small misunderstanding during introductions and progressively bigger lies to cover the initial lies lead to a side-splitting laugh riot. How those four eventually overcome their problems and find happiness forms the rest of the story.

Cast

Production

The film was initially expected to be directed by K. S. Ravikumar who directed the successful Avvai Shanmughi with Kamal Haasan in the lead earlier, but he was later replaced by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao after he refused to sign the film until the FEFSI strike of 1997 had stopped. Actresses Meena and Simran's unavailability led to Rambha being cast in a lead role. Nagma also opted against signing the film fearing that a potential clash may arise with actress Rambha, after the pair's alleged fall out on the sets of Janakiraman. After Soundarya's death in 2004, Kamal Haasan paid tribute by revealing that "she came forward to do the movie, when the rest of the industry was unwilling to work with me (Kamal Haasan)".

Release

Critics from Indolink.com gave the film a positive review, citing that "if one can put the inspirations behind, the movie is quite enjoyable" and that "the going gets very complicated and absolutely hilarious". The film was later dubbed into Telugu as Navvandi Lavvandi and released in early 1999.

In 2010, the producer of the film P. L. Thenappan threatened legal action against the makers of the Hindi film, Housefull for remaking scenes from the film without permission. Thenappan revealed he had dubbed the film into Hindi in the late 1990s as Mirchi Masala, but the version did not release.

Soundtrack

Soundtrack was composed by Karthik Raja and lyrics written by Vaali.

Remakes

The film was remade in Hindi as Housefull.