Thillalangadi

After the Telugu film Kick, directed by Surender Reddy and starring Ravi Teja, Ileana D'Cruz and Shaam, which was released in early May 2009, went on to become highly successful at the box office, 'Editor' Mohan, father of M. Raja and Jayam Ravi, purchased the remake rights for the Tamil version, paying an "astronomical amount", less than one month later.[2] While Mohan himself would produce the film, Mohan's elder son, M. Raja, was made the director, directing again his brother Jayam Ravi, who would later bag the lead role in the film. It is, noticeably, the fifth "remake project" of this combo, featuring 'Editor' Mohan as the producer, M. Raja as the director and Jayam Ravi as the lead actor, after Jayam, M. Kumaran Son of Mahalakshmi, Something Something ... Unakkum Enakkum and Santosh Subramaniam.

For the lead role, played by Ravi Teja in the original version, several popular actors, including Vijay[3] and Madhavan[3] were considered and approached. As per reports, this film was planned to be Vijay's 51st film,[4] which, however, turned out to be not true. Finally, Jayam Ravi was hired for the role, teaming up once again with his father and brother.[5]

The lead female role, originally played by Ileana D'Cruz, was eventually won by Tamannaah.[6] Initially, the crew had planned to sign Ileana for the same role in Tamil as well and approached her, but her father is said to have refused the offer as he didn't want his daughter to play the same role again.[7] Also actress Bhanu, who had starred in the films Thaamirabharani and the very recently released Azhagar Malai, was approached for the role.[8] However, she, too, reused the offer as she felt the role was too glamorous and she wouldn't fit the role.[8] Whilst all his earlier remakes had the actress, who played the role in the original film, in the Tamil version as well, M. Raja, for the first time, was not able to sign the actress of the original Telugu version.[6]

Meanwhile, Shaam, who played a vital role in the Telugu version, took up the same the role in Tamil, whilst Prabhu was hired for a "significant role"[9] and Vadivelu and Santhanam were hired for the film's comedy portions.[10][11] Prabhu Ganesan would be playing the role of Ravi's father, which was played by Sayaji Shinde in the original version. It was said, that yesteryear actor Karthik was initially considered and approached for the role, before Prabhu Ganesan was finally confirmed.[12] Suhasini Mani Ratnam was hired to enact Ravi's mother character.[13] Unlike in Raja's earlier remakes, which all had music scored by the composer who scored the original version and the same songs as well (except for M. Kumaran Son Of Mahalakshmi), composer Yuvan Shankar Raja was hired for the musical score this time, replacing Thaman, who composed the music of Kick.[9] Apart from Vadivelu and Santhanam, the film stars an array of comedians such as Livingston, Mayilsamy, Kanja Karuppu, Manobala, Thyagu and Sathyan as well.

The film was formally launched on 19 August 2009 at AVM Studios.[13][14] The first shot, featuring Jayam Ravi and Tamannaah, was directed by S. Shankar, with actor Vijay giving the inaugural clap shot.[13][15] The launch was attended by many prominent people from the Tamil film industry as Tamil Film Producers Council chief Ramanarayanan, KRG, Abirami Ramanathan, S. A. Chandrasekhar, R. B. Chowdhary, Ram Kumar, Kasthuri Raja, PL Thenappan, actor Karthi and actress Khushbu among others.[14][15]

The film was shot at various locations, including Chennai (India), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Bangkok (Thailand) and Singapore. The crew, including director Raja, Jayam Ravi, manager Senthil, cinematographer B. Rajasekar and art director Milan had been looking for locations in Malaysia in August 2009,[7] after which the film shooting began. At first, shooting was held in Chennai for nearly 20 days, following which the crew flew to Malaysia, where a major portion of the film was to be shot, where the original film was shot as well.[16] By mid-November, the crew had completed a 30-day schedule in Malaysia. The shoot in Malaysia involved an action sequence, filmed by three cameras simultaneously, which was shot on busy roads with special permissions from the local police authorities[17] and a song sequence featuring Ravi and Tamannaah. Shooting was held also at the famous Petronas Twin Towers and on the Singapore-Malaysian railway line.[18] During the 30-day filming, the September 2009 Sumatra earthquakes occurred, which the team luckily survived.[19] In late January 2010, a special song ("Solpechu Ketkadha Sundari"), widely publicized as the "360 degree song" was shot.[20] It was filmed using a Nero motion control camera that revolves on a 360 degree angle set, which was handled by an Australian specialist Scott and would later look like a single shot.[20][21] This song, choreographed by Shobi, which would feature 15 Jayam Ravis and 5 Tamannaahs, was completed in around 45 hours, on which alone nearly Rs. 75 lakhs was said to be spent.[20]

The film had a solo release on 23 July 2010, opening to mixed and negative reviews unlike the original Telugu version.[23]

The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sun TV.[24]