Remo (film)

Plot

Siva (Sivakarthikeyan) is a theatre actor whose only aim is to become a superstar like Rajinikanth. However, his lack of acting skills hinders his path to the dream, and is even rejected by director K. S. Ravikumar during the audition for his new film Avvai Shanmugi 2. He comes across Kavya (Keerthy Suresh), who is a doctor, and instantly falls in love with her. He goes to her house to propose his love, only to find out that she is engaged to a NRI doctor Vishwanathan alias Vishwa (Anson Paul). Siva, though distraught, decides to woo Kavya anyway and somehow break her engagement with Vishwa. He disguises himself as a nurse, going by the name of "Remo" (short for "Regina Motwani", a combination of the names of actresses Regina Cassandra and Hansika Motwani), and takes up a job in the same hospital where Kavya works.

Ensuring that Kavya never finds out his true identity, Siva as Remo establishes a close friendship with her, but is unable to convince her to end her engagement with Vishwa. Undeterred, he organises a massive surprise on her birthday and proposes to her as Siva. Kavya, who has been charmed by the surprise and fallen in love with Siva, is in a dilemma as she is unable to decide between Vishwa and Siva. Siva takes advantage of her dilemma and juggles the roles of both Siva as well as Remo with the aim of breaking her engagement, all the while hiding his dual identity from her. Eventually, Kavya gives in and admits her feelings to Siva, but, to the shock of both her and Siva, Vishwa has decided to prepone their marriage to the very next day. Kavya decides to end her engagement and leave her house to be with Siva. While Kavya pours out her feelings to Siva (who is disguised as Remo), Vishwa arrives with some goons to forcibly take her away. Siva, still in his Remo guise, thrashes Vishwa and his goons, but at the same moment, he is forced to rush to hospital to attend to a terminally-ill orphan Nancy (Baby Raksha), with whom he had established a close bond. On Nancy's cajoling (Siva as Remo has earlier promised her that he would "change himself" to a man as a "magic trick"), Siva removes his Remo disguise, exposing his identity to Kavya. Betrayed and hurt, Kavya berates Siva for cheating her and ending her engagement and warns him never to go behind her again. Despite Siva's repeated pleas, Kavya refuses to budge and Siva sadly walks away.

A few months later, an old man sits next to Kavya in a bus. Kavya tells her latest problem to him: Siva is still attracted to her and constantly calls her, despite her having changed her number 46 times. However, she also adds that she still loves Siva and is only avoiding him as she wants to punish him for cheating her earlier. At this juncture, she accidentally finds out that the old man is none other than Siva in disguise. After scolding Siva for cheating her yet again, she softens and asks him to marry her the next day, to which he agrees.

The film ends with Siva finally achieving his dream: acting along with his best friend Vallikanth (Sathish) in a movie which seems to be his life story named Remo Nee Kadhalan, directed by K. S. Ravikumar, in which actress Sri Divya plays the role of Kavya as Dr. Divya.

Production

In May 2015, Sivakarthikeyan announced that he would work on a film produced by R. D. Raja and directed by newcomer Bakkiyaraj Kannan. Over the following months, the technical crew was gathered with P. C. Sriram signed on as the cinematographer, Anirudh Ravichander as the music composer and Muthuraj as the art director. Resul Pookutty was announced to be doing the sound design for the film, while Sean Foot of Weta Workshop was also revealed to be on board for special makeup effects, with Sivakarthikeyan reported in the media to be sporting a female look for certain scenes.

The film was launched in early July 2015, but was briefly delayed to allow Bakkiyaraj Kannan to complete the script and finalise the cast. Keerthy Suresh was signed on to portray the film's lead heroine in October 2015, after Shruti Haasan had turned down the offer due to schedule conflict. The film's shoot began in late October 2015 with a photo shoot organised by Venket Ram. The film's introduction song was thereafter shot during November 2015 in the newly opened Chennai Metro and was choreographed by Raju Sundaram. The film developed under the tentative title of Nurse Akka, before Remo, inspired by Vikram's character in Shankar's Anniyan (2005), was finalised in February 2016. Action scenes where done by Anal' Arasu The Satellite rights were bought by Jaya TV

Music

The soundtrack composed by Anirudh was released on 5 September 2016. The album received positive reviews from both audiences and critics. Behindwoods rated the album 3.25/5 stating that "Remo's music is definitely a Cupid's arrow from Anirudh". Indiaglitz rated the album 3.5 out of 5. Kollywood rated the album 3.25/5 and stated "A Bubbly and Breezy album". 2 weeks later, Remo BGM and additional song were released on 15 October.

Release

The first look and the title track of Remo were released on 23 June live on YouTube, followed by Remo's official motion poster. A video documenting the making of Remo was released on 2 July and less than a month later, the official trailer was released on 19 September. The movie was released on 7 October. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Jaya TV.