Ullam Ketkumae

Plot

The movie is all about a group of five college friends — Emaan (Arya), Shaam (Shaam),Priya (Asin),Pooja (Laila) and Irene (Pooja). The friends gather for the wedding of Emaan, years after everyone has parted ways.

The movie starts with Pooja leaving USA to go to her college friend Emman's wedding. Meanwhile,back in India everyone else is helping Emaan with the preparations for the wedding and meeting all their long lost college friends. The movie goes through series of flashbacks of old memories during their college days. Emaan & Irene meet for the first time in a long time, and the first flashback occurs. They were once in love, however it didn't turn as Emman had expected.

Another flashback occurs when Shaam remembers Pooja. Pooja is a fun-loving tomboy who was best friends with Shaam and was treated as if she's one of them. Shaam realizes he's in love with Priya, and Pooja realizes she's in love with Shaam. Shaam and Pooja decides to reveal their love to the ones they love on Valentine's Day. Pooja learns that Shaam is in love with Priya, so she kept her love a secret heartbroken. When Priya finds out Shaam's in love with her, she rejects his love, for she is a traditional girl and admits that she is also going to get married after college and her parents have decided her husband.

At last when we are taken back to the present day, the wedding. Everyone meets each other, and Pooja arrives. Pooja is no longer the same girl she was back then.She was more mature and not a tomboy at the same time. Pooja finally reveals her love to Shaam using a Valentine Card that she had been waiting for in college but couldn't as she had found out he was in love with Priya. Shaam realizes that Pooja is the one he's supposed to be with her all this time rather than being with Priya as he knew she would not accept it because she was cultural and innocent.

In the end Shaam accepted Pooja's love and end the movie by hugging each other.

Cast

Production

The film was first reported in April 2002, where it was revealed that Shaam and Richa Pallod were going to team up with director Jeeva, who had launched Shaam in the critically acclaimed 12B, for a college love story titled Pepsi. The title Pepsi had stemmed from the first letter from the names of the five friends — Priya, Emaan, Pooja, Shyam and Irene. The film was later renamed and the film took the brand Pepsi's tagline in South India - Ullam Ketkumae - as the new title. Asin signed the film aged eighteen and the film was meant to mark her début in Tamil films, but the delay meant that M. Kumaran son of Mahalakshmi released almost a year before this one. While working as a software engineer, Arya was approached by Jeeva to audition for the film in 2003 as the pair had lived in the same neighbourhood and had attended the same local mosque. Arya immediately signed on for the project and was given the stage name of Arya for the film by Jeeva. Pooja was also signed on to make her début and play Irene in the film, although the film's delay meant that several of her other films released before Ullam Ketkumae hit the screens.

Art director Thotta Tharani created a college campus for the film to be shot in, with his work drawing appreciation. A scene featuring an inter college day cultural had 100 students from various states take part in the shooting while decorations and a podium were put up for a marriage scene in Taj Connemara hotel. Raju Sundaram choreographed five songs including a song shot at hot water springs in New Zealand.

The film went through production hell, with three years being spent on the announcement till release. The delay also led to the actors featuring in other projects during the period and Jeeva moving on to direct a Hindi film, Run. Despite giving indications that the film would release after delays on 14 April 2004 it was further pushed back due to financial issues. In May 2005, the Supreme Court finally cleared the decks for the release, as earlier the Madras High court by a 25 February order appointed "Joint Receivers" for the film, which was objected by Prasad Labs who had gone to Supreme Court. It was agreed that the collections from the film will be received by "joint receivers" who will pay Prasad Labs for 72 prints of the film. The film subsequently opened in Tamil Nadu on 3 June 2005.

Release

The film released on 3 June 2005 and became a commercial success at the box office with pundits describing the film as a "sleeper hit". The film took a 90 percent opening in four Chennai screens with large collections reported at the Devi theatre in Chennai in the opening weekend. The film surprisingly opened at number two at the Chennai box office despite competition, just below the Rajinikanth starrer Chandramukhi.

A critic from nowrunning.com labelled that "Ullam Ketkumae is worth seeing as it has a certain truth and universality to it", claiming that "Shyam and Laila give an impressive performance" and that Jeeva has "remarkably caught the college atmosphere, and the underlying passion, love and friendship". The success of the film brought a series of offers for Shaam, whose career was struggling prior to release, whilst Arya and Asin were able to consolidate their positions of rising actors. The success of the film later prompted a dubbed Telugu version being released on 30 March 2006 as Preminchi Choodu.

Music

The music and background score were composed by Harris Jayaraj. Lyrics were written by Vairamuthu.(exceptions are noted).

Telugu track list

Later it was dubbed into Telugu as Preminchi Choodu. All Lyrics are penned by Bhuvanachandra.