Udhaya

Udhaya
Directed by	Azhagam Perumal
Produced by	Pyramid Natarajan
Starring	Vijay Simran Nasser Vivek
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Cinematography	S. Saravanan
Release date(s)	28 March 2004
Language	Tamil

Udhaya is a 2004 Tamil film directed by Azhagam Perumal. The film featured Vijay and Simran in the lead roles, while Vivek, Nassar and Rajesh play other supporting roles. The film opened to poor reviews and fared below average commercially.

Plot

Udhayakumar (Vijay) and Vasanthi (Simran) are collegemates and they fall in love. But soon he comes to know that she is engaged to be married. After he moves to Chennai and finds a job as a reporter at a magazine. He tries to fight for social change. In the process , he unknowingly gets to know a group of unsavoury characters who promise to help him in his goals. They frame him up. One day Udhaya is arrested for a crime involving a terrorist plot which he is not responsible. The movie is about how Vasanthi fights to prove his innocence and to get him out from behind bars.

Cast

• Vijay as Udhayakumaran
• Simran as Vasanthi
• Nassar
• Vivek as Bashir
• Rajesh as Muthusamypillai
• Pyramid V. Natarajan as a newspaper editor
• Thalaivasal Vijay as
• Bala Singh as Ramji
• Gowtham as David John
• Krishna Sekhar as Venkat Raman
• Sophia Haque in a special appearance

Production

Azhagam Perumal, an assistant to director Mani Ratnam in the 1990s, made his directorial debut with the project. Simran was signed on to be a part of the film in August 1999 after winning critical acclaim and commercial success in her previous appearance alongside Vijay in Ezhil's Thulladha Manamum Thullum.

An item number was shot in 2000 with Vijay and Sophia Haque for the film.

The film's delay led to Azhagam Perumal being labelled by the media as an "unlucky director", also as his first film Mudhal Mudhalaaga starring Arvind Swamy and Karisma Kapoor had also failed to take off. He however signed on to direct Dumm Dumm Dumm, a film produced by Mani Ratnam, which became a box office success.

As the film finally geared up for release in the summer of 2004, trade pundits were insistent that despite the presence of Vijay's other big budget film, Ghilli, time should be allotted to publicise Udhaya too. Eventually the films released a month apart.

Release

The film opened to poor reviews from critics. A reviewer from Bizhat.com labelled the film as "a jaded and disappointing fare", mentioning that the delay led to Vijay "changing from lean to chubby and back in the film".

Music

Udhaya
Soundtrack album by A.R. Rahman
Released	2004
Recorded	Panchathan Record Inn
Genre	Film soundtrack
Length	28:02
Label	Sa Re Ga Ma
Producer	A.R. Rahman
A.R. Rahman chronology
Tehzeeb (2003) Udhaya (2004) Lakeer – Forbidden Lines (2004)

The soundtrack for the film was composed by A.R. Rahman. The soundtrack received positive reviews, particularly the songs Udhaya Udhaya and Pookum Malarai. One of the songs had lyrics written by famous Tamil director, composer and lyricist Gangai Amaran. This film also marked the second song sung by Hindi singer Sukhwinder Singh in Tamil, after the song Lucky Lucky in the movie Ratchagan.

Song	Singer(s)	Lyrics
Pookum Malarai	Hariharan	Pazhani Bharathi
Udhaya Udhaya	Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam	Arivumathi
Thiruvallikeni Rani	Sukhwinder Singh, Karthik	Gangai Amaran
Enna Enna	Shankar Mahadevan, Gopika Poornima	Ilayakamban
Anjanam	S.P.Balasubramanyam, S. Janaki	Pazhani Bharathi