N Lingusamy

Career

Lingusamy hails from a village Lakshmipuram in Tamil Nadu. He joined as an assistant director to director A. Venkatesh for his Tamil film Mahaprabhu and followed in his next film Selva. He had also assisted Vikraman in Vaanathaippola, a family drama on brothers.

He made his directorial debut with the Tamil family drama Aanandham, starring Mammootty. About the film, Linguswamy said: "The film actually is based on real life. Born in a large family I was impressed with the incidents my mother narrated to me. They were deeply etched in my memory and I thought I would use them when I got a chance to direct a film. Thus when Mr. Chowdhry gave me an opportunity I narrated the stories and he found them highly appealing". Linguswamy originally wanted to title the project, Thirupathi Brothers, which he later went on to name his production house. Aanandham opened to positive reviews in May 2001, with a critic noting that "it is a promising work from the debutant director". The film won several awards including the Filmfare Award for Best Film – Tamil, Cinema Express Award for Best Film – Tamil, and two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, while, The Hindu listed the film amongst the best of 2001.

His second film was Run with Madhavan. The film, too, was a commercially successful and also received good reviews. After the success of Run, Linguswamy announced his plans of re-collaborating with Madhavan in Sathyam, a film about student politics. Due to Madhavan's unavailabity, the role went to Ajith Kumar, with the film being newly re-titled Ji. Upon release, film received negative reviews especially, A critic from Indiaglitz praised the film citing that "Lingusamy should be appreciated for giving a movie with pulsating sequences. He has infused the script with all the right ingredients and keeps the tempo of the narration on an even keel." Critics from The Hindu claimed that the film "could have been better". Similarly the film received a negative review from Rediff.com's critics citing that "Ji is for Ajith fans only!". The film took a large opening all over Tamil Nadu, but later turned out to be a box office disaster and sustained a considerable loss for the producer.

His next project was Sandakozhi with Vishal in his second film. The film was a commercial success grossing $3.5 million at the box office. A critic from Sify in his review wrote: "Lingusamy lives up to his reputation as a director who makes racy action packed family entertainers with his new release Sandakozhi." In 2005, Vikram signed his next project Bheemaa, which faced severe delays and only released in January 2008. Upon release, the film gained mixed reviews though reviewers praised Vikram's performance with a critic claiming to see the film "only for him". Similarly the review from The Hindu was critical of the excessive violence and mentioned that "as narration gives way after a point, Vikram can only appear helpless". Noted director Gautham Menon criticized the film in a leading newspaper.

In 2008, Lingusamy began filming his sixth project, Paiyaa featuring Karthi and Tamannaah in the lead roles. Upon release the film and its soundtrack by Yuvan Shankar Raja were successful and received generally positive reviews, with most critics calling the film "summer entertainer" and lauding its technical aspects. Sify described the film as a "road movie laced with mass elements and extraordinary songs", adding that it is a "jolly good ride" and naming it "technically [...] Linguswamy's his best". A reviewer from the Times of India, Bhama Devi Ravi, gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, writing that "the story is not earth-shatteringly new, but what pulls you into the movie is the different spin that Lingusamy gives to the familiar story".

Lingusamy's next made the action masala film Vettai with Arya and Madhavan in lead roles. Vettai released on the Pongal weekend on 14 January 2012, and received overall mixed to positive reviews as well.

Although Lingusamy has worked in Tamil only, his films have been dubbed or been remade in other languages too. Dubbed Telugu versions of Run, Sandakozhi and Paiyaa, titled Run, Pandem Kodi and Awara, respectively, were released in Andhra Pradesh and also became commercially successful. Aanandham was remade in 2005 as Sankranti by Muppalaneni Shiva in Telugu, while Jeeva remade Run in Hindi under the same title in 2004. His Paiyaa was remade in Bengali in 2012 as Jaaneman, while in 2013, a Telugu remake of his Vettai titled Tadakha was released.

In 2014, Anjaan was released with cast of Suriya and Samantha. The film turned out to be an average grosser. Critics lashed at the lack of content. Part of the reason for the failure of the film was due to the hype generated by the film crew pre release which it subsequently could not satisfy and also became the basis of memes generated on social media. The film was also released in Telugu in the name of Sikandar for the Telugu fans of Suriya and Samantha.