Sundarapandian

Plot

Sundarapandian (Sasi Kumar) is the only son of a rich landlord Raghupathi (Aadukalam Naren) who lives in Usilampatti near Madurai. Murugesan (Soori) and Arivazhagan (Inigo Prabhakaran) are his close friends from the same town. Arivazhagan falls in love with Archana (Laksmi Menon) who lives in the nearby village but is scared to propose his love and decides to get the help of Sundarapandian in expressing the love.

Sundarapandian, Murugesan and Arivazhagan board the route bus daily in which Archana travels to her college. Bhuvaneswaran (Appukutty) also loves Archana and travels in the same bus trying to propose her. One day, Archana suddenly proposes Sundarapandian which shocks everyone. A small flashback is shown where Sundarapandian has followed Archana trying to woo her during school days. As she did not respond, Sundarapandian stopped following her. But Archana likes Sundarapandian and was waiting to meet him to convey her love towards him.

But Archana’s parents wanted her to get married to their relative Jegan (Vijay Sethupathi) although she is not interested. Paranjothi (Soundararaja) is Sundarapandian’s collegemate and is also a friend of Bhuvaneshwaran. Sundarapandian asks Bhuvaneswaran to stop following Archana for which he does not agree. One day, clash erupts between Sundarapandian and Bhuvaneswaran while travelling in bus and suddenly Bhuvaneswaran is pushed out of the moving bus which leads to his death. Sundarapandian is arrested. Sundarapandian gets released from the case as it was termed as an accident and his father agrees to take care of Bhuvaneswaran’s ailing parents and give money for his sister’s marriage. But some of the friends of Bhuvaneswaran wait for the right time to take revenge on Sundarapandian. Paranjothi is also angry on Sundarapandian but does not express it instead behaves normally and waits for the revenge.

Meanwhile, Archana’s parents try to force her to get married to Jegan. Raghupathi comes to Archana’s home with a marriage proposal between Archana and Sundarapandian. Raghupathi requests Archana’s father to set aside the ego and to fulfil his daughter’s wish by getting her married to Sundarapandian. Archana’s father is convinced by Raghupathi’s speech and agrees for the wedding with Sundarapandian.

Jegan gets furious knowing that Archana is about to get married to someone else. He is even more shocked to know that Sundarapandian is none other than his close friend in college but has lost contact after college days. Jegan decides to kill Sundarapandian and Paranjothi also decides to help Jegan.

Paranjothi meets Sundarapandian and informs about Jegan’s love towards Archana. He also lies that Jegan is transforming into a drunkard worrying about his love in the outskirts of the town. Sundarapandian decides to meet Jegan and try to bring back him to normal. In the meantime, Paranjothi and Jegan have planned to kill Sundarapandian while he comes to meet Jegan.

Arivazhagan accompanies Sundarapandian while on the way to meet Jegan. In the outskirts of the town, Sundarapandian meets Jegan and requests him to behave normally. He apologizes saying that he never knew about his love towards Archana before. But Jegan does not listen to Sundarapandian and tries attacking him along with Paranjothi. Sundarapandian pushes them away and tries to escape from the place. But to his shock, Arivazhagan stabs Sundarapandian from behind as he has vengeance regarding his love for Archana.

Sundarapandian feels bad that all his friends betrayed him. However Sundarapandian retaliates and hits back at Paranjothi, Jegan and Arivazhagan with the help of weapons. All three are badly hurt and fall on ground. Sundarapandian reveals that he knew long before that Paranjothi seeks revenge on him for the death of Bhuvaneswaran (a group had a man wearing Paranjothi’s shirt who had come to kill Sundapandian before). He also reveals that it was Arivazhagan who pushed Bhuvaneswaran from the moving bus during the clash but everyone misunderstood that it was Sundarapandian. Sundarapandian decided to take the blame as he does not want his friend Arivazhagan’s life to be spoiled. He also scolds Jegan for forcefully trying to marry Archana despite knowing that she is not interested.

Sundarapandian and Archana get married. The movie ends showing that Sundarapandian did not disclose the betrayal committed by his friends to anyone but instead ended his friendship with them.

Cast

Soundtrack

The music was composed by N. R. Raghunanthan. The audio was released by Bala and received by Muthaiya and Socrates, two assistant directors of Sasikumar.

Critical reception

N. Venkateswaran from The Times of India gave it 3.5 out of 5 and called it a "clean family entertainer". The reviewer wrote that "the racy script, easy flowing dialogues and the twists he introduces in the screenplay to take it off the beaten path are commendable" and added that "one more student has passed out with flying colours from the Sasikumar school of cinema". in.com wrote "Sundarapandiyan is a well made commercial flick with right dose of comedy, sentiment and thrill". IBNLive claimed that the film was a "honest attempt. Prabhakar does his best and make it an interesting watch thanks to Sasikumar". A critic from Sify wrote that debutant director SR Prabhakaran made "a confident debut with a film that is both respectable and engaging" BollywoodLife praised the film, citing: "No masala elements, and still entertaining". Anupama Subramanian from Deccan Chronicle described it as an "honest attempt from Prabhakaran which is engaging family fare", while noting that "Sasi[kumar]’s touches [were] seen till [the] climax". Behindwoods gave 3 out of 5, calling it a "family entertainer with ample dose of comedy". Similarly, Zee News termed the film a "satisfying wholesome entertainer".

60th Filmfare Awards South

2nd South Indian International Movie Awards

7th Vijay Awards

Vikatan Awards