Thirupaachi

Plot

Sivagiri (Vijay) is a blade-smith in a remote village near Thirupaachi. He has a lovable sister named Karpagam (Mallika). He runs into some hilarious incidents while searching locally for a groom for his sister. Sivagiri confides to his friend Kannapan that he wants his sister to be in a good city after her marriage. Sivagiri also nods his acceptance, when a city guy proposes to Karpagam. He accompanies the newly weds to Chennai. He finds a girl named Shuba (Trisha) welcoming them, and they both fall in love after initial mishaps.

On a trip to Chennai, Sivagiri rescues a court witness from Pattasu Balu (Pasupathy), a don dominating central Chennai. He also learns of a local don Pan Parag Ravi (Aryan), who controls North Chennai, and who is troubling Karpagam's husband's canteen business. In an altercation in a cinema theater, Kannappan gets murdered by a thug named Saniyan Sagada (Kota Srinivasa Rao), who dominates South Chennai. Karpagam's husband told Sivagiri to leave Chennai if he wants his sister to be happy. Then, after the funeral of Kannapan,he leaves his home town stating that he got a job in a cloth manufacturing company. But in reality he comes with a mission in Chennai.

Then, he warns Saniyan Sagadai stating that the latter too will be killed by him. He also calls the assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Raj Guru and warns him that he will kill all the dons of Chennai as the police department fails in their duty. Later on, Sivagiri's friend Veluchamy (Yugendran) who is also an inspector, comes to know about this. Sivagiri challenges Veluchamy that he will give up his mission if the latter keeps any one thug of Chennai in jail at least for a single day. Veluchamy not only fails in his mission but also loses his son as he was killed by Pattasu Balu, the head of the thug who got arrested.

This harsh lesson makes Veluchamy to help Sivagiri. Thus, Veluchamy lists Sivagiri the entire mafia network of Chennai by providing the specification of who leads the various areas. Sivagiri write their names in papers and randomly chooses Pattasu Balu. He goes and kills Pattasu Balu, stating that he is not killing instead 'clearing'.

Then, one day, Shuba meets Sivagiri in a temple and finds that he is not working in any cloth manufacturing company. But still, Sivagiri manages to make Shuba believe that he is working in a travels company. Thus, Shuba gets a promise from Sivagiri that he should meet her and spend time with her quite frequently.

Later on, Sivagiri provokes Ravi to kill his own brother by sticking the funeral posters of Ravi and making him think that his brother is the person who is killing people all over Chennai. After the death of Ravi's brother, Ravi hides himself in a politician's house to be away and safe from the hands of police. That politician damages his own car and house by his henchmen and makes the police to believe that someone has attacked his house. Thus, the police decide to provide security for the politician. This makes Ravi feel happy, considering that Sivagiri can't come to his place by fooling all these inspectors and kill him. Then, Sivagiri's friend inspector Veluchamy found out that Ravi is hiding in the politician's place. (He found out from the politician's servant that walks in but brings tobacco).

Sivagiri wants Veluchamy to help by disband the police protection but Veluchamy refused because that is police responsibilities to protect. He can only informs Sivagiri and Sivagiri have to kill Ravi. Later on, Sivagiri brings a group of people, who rallies due losing their money to a financier, that the fraud financier is hiding in the politician's place. With the rally, Sivagiri enters Ravi's fort and succeeds in killing Ravi by using mosquito pesticide into his mouth.

Raj inquires the people that involve in rally regarding identity of Sivagiri. However nobody want to tell anything because they think Sivagiri is doing the police's job while the police do nothing and only waits for their salary. Even Raj's daughter is willing to die than reveal Sivagiri's identity because she was rescued by Sivagiri from Pattasu Balu.

Later on, Sivagiri decides to kill Saniyan Sagadai and as usual warns Sagadai. This makes Sagadai to seek the protection of a mass group of thugs from Chennai. Sivagiri uses this as a chance to destroy the entire mafia gang of Chennai. Thus, Sivagiri ignites a war between the police group and mafia gang in a very diplomatic manner. Sivagiri disguises himself as a police inspector and enters the fort of Sagadai. Veluchamy too helps Sivagiri in his mission by hurting himself. Raj angrily orders his squad to hit the thugs.

Sivagiri enter the house with one thug and force the thug to wear a police uniform. After that, Sivagiri shoot the thug and throw him out of the window, Thinking that one of his fellow officers is dead, Raj orders for open fire. All the thugs were killed. But when they checked the dead 'police', they realizes Sivagiri's trick and immediately run to upstairs to find him. However Sivagiri already stabs Sagadai and throws him to the ground right before the birth of a new year.

Finally, Sivagiri surrenders to the police but he releases after 6 months. Shuba welcomes Sivagiri, his sister and his sister's husband once again after returning home. Sivagiri gives Shuba necklace that he is wearing and they unite at the end.

Cast

Awards

Casting

The film was announced in 2004. Director Perarasu earlier worked as an assistant director under Rama Narayanan and N. Maharajan. Vijay's words about Perarasu was: He is a talented person. He talks very less but he shows everything in his work. He acts before me, scene by scene, before the take is on. Trisha who earlier paired with Vijay in Ghilli was selected to play lead role after Jyothika turned down the Offer. Thirupaachi was Vijay's 40th film and fifth collaboration with Supergood Films. Actor Vikram's father Vinodraj was selected to play Vijay's father. Chaya Singh was roped in for item number.

Filming

A song was picturised in a village near Karaikudi, where a lavish set was designed by art director M Prabhakar. It was of an Ayyanar temple with a 90-foot statue, surrounded by 200 mud horses. Costing about Rs 3 million, it had about 1,500 junior artistes taking part. It took a week to complete the song. The climax for the film was shot in Vasan House, Chennai. It had a huge crowd of junior artistes taking part each day of the two weeks it took to complete the scene. Other locations for shooting were Visakhapatnam, Arakkuveli, with a song shot in South Africa.

Controversy

Thirupaachi was sued by Godrej Sara Lee Ltd. for what they considered "defamatory, prejudicial, offensive and slanderous" use of the mosquito spray HIT, of which they are the trademark owners. Godrej eventually won the case, obtaining "an order of permanent injunction and damages worth INR 500,000" from Super Good Films.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack has seven songs, five songs were composed by Dhina, while Devi Sri Prasad (Kattu Kattu) and Mani Sharma (Kannum Kannumthan) had composed one song respectively. All the lyrics for the songs were penned by Perarasu.

Release

The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sun TV. The film was given a "U/A" certificate by the Indian Censor Board. Thirupachi was released on 14 January 2005 on the eve of Pongal with other releases like Ayyaa, Iyer IPS, Aayudham and Devathaiyai Kanden. Tirupachi released with 207 prints.

After the success of Thirupaachi, A. M. Rathnam called Perarasu to make "Sivakasi" with Vijay re-uniting with him for second time.

Critical reception

The film received positive reviews. Behindwoods wrote: "Another tailor-made role for Vijay, Tiruppachi scores with its impressive screenplay. Although the story is the perennial tear-jerker of a brother's affection for his sister, the packaging will attract the audience". Indiaglitz wrote: "It is a film for Vijay's fans who love their star to dance with energy, fight with enthusiasm and love with mischief. He does all this in his usual style. Punchline dialogues, songs glorifying hero find their place in all throughout the movie". While another critic wrote: "Unlike usual masala movies that serve up sentiments and action alternately, Thiruppaachi makes a clean break between the two. Its first half, which is entirely setup, is devoted entirely to comedy and sentiments with not even a single stunt sequence. But once action rears its head after the intermission, there is no respite from it apart from the obligatory duets. It is one violent fight after the other until the final credits roll. It is to director Perarasu's credit that both halves maintain our interest in spite of the dedication to a particular aspect". Sify wrote:"Vijay has stuck to his regular formula - five songs, flying fights, crass comedy, punch line dialogues, dream songs in foreign locales and corny sentiments. So if you have seen earlier films of the superstar you may strive hard to find anything new in Tirupachi, which is old wine served in a new bottle, with a different Label.

Box office

The film released on the Pongal festival in Tamil Nadu alongside Ayya and with Dhanush starrer Devathayai Kanden. The film opened up to full houses with 80 percent occupancy from Chennai and other districts of the state. After taking a fantastic opening for the first week, the film took a slight fall in crowd for the second week. The film completed a 200-day theatrical in Tamil Nadu

Remakes

The movie was dubbed in Hindi as Insaaf Ki Talwar. It was later remade in Telugu as Annavaram in the year 2006 with Pawan Kalyan and Asin in the lead roles, directed by Bhimaneni Srinivasa Rao. It was also remade in Kannada language as Thangigagi in the year 2006 with Darshan and Poonam Bajwa in the lead roles, directed by Sathya P.