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Varalaru
Directed by	K.S. Ravikumar
Produced by	S.S. Chakravarthy
Written by	Screenplay: K. S. Ravikumar Story: K. S. Ravikumar Dialogue: Sujatha
Starring	Ajith Kumar, Asin Thottumkal, Kanika Subramaniam, Ramesh Khanna Suman Shetty Vijayan Ponnambalam Mansoor Ali Khan Sujatha M. S. Baskar
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Distributed by	NIC Arts Ayngaran Ayngaran Ayngaran Ayngaran
Release date(s)	October 22, 2006 October 23, 2006 October 23, 2006 October 23, 2006 October 23, 2006
Running time	158 mins
Language	Tamil
IMDb profile

Varalaru - History of Godfather (Tamil: வரலாறு) is a Tamil film released during Diwali of 2006. The film stars Ajith, Kanika Subramaniam and Asin, and was directed by K.S. Ravikumar. Ajith plays three roles in the movie: a father and his two sons. The female lead is played by Kanika. Ramesh Khanna and Suman Shetty are featured in supporting roles. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman.

The film's release was originally scheduled for May 1, 2005, Ajith's birthday, but was delayed; it opened November 14, 2006 in India. It was successful at the box office in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Cast 3 Crew 4 Soundtrack 5 Production 6 Publicity and Release 7 Influences 8 Box Office 9 Awards 10 References 11 External links

Shivshankar (Ajith Kumar) is bound to a wheelchair and has a son, Vishnu (also played by Ajith Kumar), who is playful, spoiled, irresponsible, and young. To teach him a lesson, Shivshankar sends Vishnu to Thottapuram to help the poor. Vishnu doesn't want to go, but the owner of a pizzeria tells him and his friends that the village is one big brothel, so they go. However, Thottampuram is really a very sacred village and the pizzeria owner wants Vishnu and his friends to be beaten up there. Also arriving in Thottapuram is Divya (Asin Thottumkal), along with her college class. They are there for their social activity course: they want to improve hygiene in the village.

The village head wants Divya and friends to stay with poor families, instead of at the large village building, because the building is reserved for six rich guests. Divya decides to woo these six newcomers and drop them afterwards, so she and her friends can get the building.

Vishnu and his five friends arrive, are greeted by the village and start to woo Divya and the girls, whom they mistake for Thottapuram's prostitutes. When Divya finds out, they decide to teach Vishnu and his friends a lesson and ensure they leave the large building so Divya and her friends can occupy it.

A large feast is celebrated, Divya and the other girls woo Vishnu and his friends and finally lead them to the bedrooms. Vishnu's friends are injected a substance called "Monkey Blood", which makes them itch all over and they leave, screaming and scratching. Vishnu himself refuses to sleep with Divya (who desperately tries to give him the "Monkey Blood", but he evades her attempts), since he says he has committed lots of small mistakes and doesn't want to make a big one by sleeping with her. He asks her to leave her profession and Divya lies to him, saying she can't, as she has to support a family that is crippled with various diseases. Vishnu, moved, leaves.

Vishnu wants to give Divya money so she can start a new life, but Divya refuses once again, saying she doesn't need a new life, she has to restore her honour - so Vishnu agrees to marry her in the village temple. Divya doesn't believe him, but Vishnu says he will be there to marry her the next day. However, Divya doesn't come, and Vishnu and his friends see her bus leaving. The bus bears the name of the girls' college; Vishnu and his friends now know they have been tricked and the girls weren't really prostitutes.

Back at home, Shivshankar notices that Vishnua has fallen in love. He makes sure, and Vishnu and Divya get engaged.

However, during the night, Jeeva (the third role played by Ajith Kumar) turns up. He is a bank robber and deposits money under Vishnu's bed, so Vishnu is suspected to have robbed the bank. Shivshankar believes him.

Vishnu gets drunk at a party and Jeeva uses a spray to knock him out. The he drives to Divya's house to see her, however her father and brothers won't let him in. A fight ensues, where Divya's father, Vijayan, tries to shoot Jeeva, who finally drives away. Vijayan ends the engagement between his daughter and Vishnu, because of the latter's behaviour who has no idea what's going on.

Vishnu visits Divya's cousin, but Jeeva's already there, knocks him out, takes over and tries to rape her. When Shivshankar hears of this, he whips his son, who does not know what happened. They send Vishnu to a therapist, however Jeeva again takes over and stabs Shivshankar's assistant. It is revealed that Jeeva hates Shivshankar since he has left his mother (Kanika) and she has become mad because of this.

At the same time, Divya manages to sneak into Vishnu's hospital and tells him that she thinks he's innocent. She leaves and shortly afterwards, Jeeva appears, smuggles Vishnu out of the hospital, dumps him somewhere, takes over his identity and goes to kill Shivshankar. The father notices that it's not his son and gets out of his wheelchair in order to defend himself. Vishnu arrives at the scene, surprised that his father is able to walk and demands an explanation.

Shivshankar tells him that he wanted to become a dancer - however dancing is not seen as a "masculine" trait, especially by his mother, who thinks that dancing is as bad as having a disorder. She also wants Shivshankar to marry Jeeva's mother; which he does, however it's not a happy wedding, since Jeeva's mother rejects Shivshankar, as he is too demine. Shivshankar, enraged, rapes Jeeva's mother - a deed that results in a pregnancy. The doctor refuses to give a contraception to Jeeva's mother and so Jeeva is born, because Jeeva's grandmother wanted the child. Despite wanting to go back to Shivshankar, Jeeva's mother slowly goes mad.

Jeeva escapes and now threatens the wedding between Vishnu and Divya. He wants to blow up the entire ceremony, and Shivshankar tries to stop him. Finally, Jeeva's grandmother comes out of hospital, explains the entire affair and Jeeva realizes what he has done. He wants Shivshankar to shoot him, but instead of Jeeva, his father gets shot and dies.

In the end, Jeeva is taken into custody. Jeeva's mother does not accept food from anyone, until Vishnu comes dressed up as Jeeva and feeds her. It ends with stating that Shivshankar is their godfather.

• Ajith Kumar playing three roles: Shivshankar (an old man in a wheelchair living with his son Vishnu) / Vishnu (first son of Shivshankar and Kanika) / Jeeva (second son of Shivshankar and Kanika).
• Kanika Subramaniam as Shivshankar's wife.
• Asin Thottumkal as Divya: A pretty young college girl who comes to the village of Thottapuram as a part of her education.
• Ramesh Khanna as Ramesh: A friend of Vishnu.
• Suman Shetty as Oorundai: Another friend of Vishnu.
• Vijayan as Divya's father
• Ponnambalam as Divya's brother
• Mansoor Ali Khan as Divya's brother
• K. S. Ravikumar as the family doctor
• M. S. Baskar as Disguised Dean
• Sujatha as Kanika's mother
• Mathan Bob as Shop owner
• Citi Babu as Police Officer
• Sivashankar as Dance Master
• Santhana Bharathi as Jeeva's Uncle

The crew for the film is another key element; the film was able to unite Ajith with K. S. Ravikumar and A. R. Rahman. All three were looking to get their careers back on track with the film. The production house and distributors were also able to make this happen and revive a few careers in Kollywood.

Profession	Name
Actor	Ajithkumar
Actress	Asin, Kanika Subramaniam
Director	K. S. Ravikumar
Screenplay	K. S. Ravikumar
Story	K. S. Ravikumar
Dialogue	Sujatha
Script	K. S. Ravikumar
Producer	NIC Arts
Music	A. R. Rahman
Choreography	Raju Sundaram
Editor	Thanikachalam
Director of Photography	Artur vilson PC Sreeram Priyan

The soundtrack features nine songs composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu. This soundtrack was released before the movie had even come out. Some of the songs themselves had been released a very long time before the release of the film itself, as the film had to face a number of obstacles before getting released. But however A. R. Rahman has been able to deliver the goods once again with his songs in Varalaru. A singer that was much talked about after the release of Varalaru was none other than Naresh Iyer, his two songs became huge hits with the fans. He and A. R. Rahman teamed up once again for Sillunu Oru Kaadhal, producing another super hit song.

Song	Singer(s)
Ilamai (Remix)	Suresh Peters, Blaaze
Kamma Karaiyil	Naresh Iyer, Sowmiya
Innisai (Remix)	Mahathi, Saindhavi
Kaatril Oru Vaarthai	SP Balasubramanyam, Sadhana Sargam, Reena Bharathwaj
Ilamai	Aslam, Thambi, Shalini
Thottapuram	Kalpana, Sonu Kakar, Leon James, Peer Mohamad, Ranjith
Innisai	Naresh Iyer, Mahathi
Theeyil Vizhundha	A. R. Rahman
Innisai (Remix 2)	Mahathi, Saindhavi

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The producer of the film S.S. Chakravarthy and NIC Arts were key to the success of Varalaru. The production of the film allowed for great stars to come together initially for the film. However there was a major twist as the film was delayed for a long time due to trouble in the production. At the end Ajith himself paid a considerable amount of money for the film to be released so it would not collide with his later acting plans.

The original cast was to consist of Kamal, then Rajini was considered, but he also had other commitments at the time. The third choice for the film was Ajith, who finally accepted. Originally titled Godfather (Tamil: காட்ஃபாதர்), it was renamed to take advantage of the State Government’s entertainment tax exemption for movies titled in Tamil.^[1]

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Ratings
France:	15A
India:	U
United Kingdom:	15A
United States:	15A

The publicity of the film was initially created when K. S. Ravikumar picked Ajith to star in the movie and hence named the movie Godfather. People thought it will be as great as the Marlon Brando film The Godfather, which was arguably the best film series of all time. The name of the film was however changed to Varalaru, but the hype still did not tone down, as people were eagerly awaiting it.

When the cast showed Asin opposite Ajith, for Asin fans it marked her claim to fame, as initially she had signed up for Godfather before she had signed up for Ghajini opposite Suriya. The film eventually put the hero and the heroine very high up the pecking order in Kollywood.

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The use of the time-slice method in the film, as with The Matrix films and earlier used by Shankar in his film Anniyan, as well as the Farah Khan directed Main Hoon Na, proved popular with the audience. The Special Effects are to be provided by Big Freeze, a department based in London. Art Direction for the film was provided by Thotta Tharani. K.S. Ravikumar has also gained experience from previous hits of recent times such as Ghajini, Anniyan and even the Rajinikanth starer Chandramukhi. The film as a whole shows Ajith in a triple role. One of the roles as a dancer is influenced by the dance master of the film himself, Shivshankar. Although this may be deemed to be not very welcoming, the dance master allowed K. S. Ravikumar to use his name and continue with the script. His dance was key to the film as Ajith represented as Shivshankar.

• The film opened on over 300 screens worldwide including 23 screens in Chennai district,^{[citation needed]} 16 screens in the USA and 16 screens in Bangalore.^{[citation needed]}
• The film opened at No. 24 in U.K. box-office collecting Rs. 1.2 million in its opening weekend.^[2] Overall gross in UK was Rs.2.4 million.^[3]
• The film was declared a blockbuster within a couple of weeks of its release.^[4]
• The film turned out to be the biggest blockbuster in Ajith's career grossing almost Rs.500 million, reported India Today.^[5]
• Varalaru broke the record of chandramukhi by grossing Rs.10.2 crores in 2 days in Tamil Nadu.
• The film completed 13 weeks successfully before being replaced by the next Ajith film Aalwar though it continued to play for 175 days in some screens.^{[citation needed][6]}

Varalaru (GodFather) won an award at the 54th Filmfare Awards for Tamil films,where the award is considered to be the most prestigious after the National award.

54th Filmfare Award Year 2006

• Best Actor (Male)- Ajit Kumar

• Varalaru Review from SearchIndia.com
• Varalaaru Photo Gallery

v • d • e Films directed by K. S. Ravikumar

Aagraham (1992) • Puriyaadha Pudhir (1994) • Muthu (1995) • Avvai Shanmugi (1996) • Naatamae (1996) • Sneham Kosam (1997) • Mr. Romeo (1997) • Natpukkaaga (1998) • Kondattam (1998) • Suyamvaram (1999) • Padayappa (1999) • Minsaara Kanna (1999) • Paatali (2000) • Thenali (2000) • Samudhiram (2001) • Panchathanthiram (2002) • Villain (2002) • Paarai (2003) • Aethiree (2004) • Saravana (2006) • Varalaru (2006) • Dasavatharam (2007)