Yennai Arindhaal

Producer A. M. Rathnam wanted Ajith Kumar back after 'Arrambam', and he asked Gautham Vasudev Menon to direct a Tamil remake of 'Race 2'. Menon wasn't interested and pitched an original story instead, which became 'Yennai Arindhaal'. It closes his police trilogy, after 'Kaakha Kaakha' with Suriya and 'Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu' with Kamal Haasan.

On a flight, software engineer Thenmozhi meets Sathyadev and falls for him almost on the spot. What she doesn't know is that an organ trafficking gang has her in its sights, or that the stranger beside her has a very dark past.

In flashbacks, the film tells Sathyadev's story from the day his father was murdered when he was a boy: joining the police, the years he spent undercover inside a gang, the friendship he struck up there with Victor, and his romance with Hemanika, a dancer raising her daughter alone. And when Victor crosses his path again, Sathyadev finds himself back on the thin line between cop and gangster.

Ajith gets four different looks over almost three hours, with Trisha Krishnan as Hemanika, Anushka Shetty as Thenmozhi and Arun Vijay as Victor. Shooting began in April 2014 and moved between Chennai, Hyderabad, Rajasthan, Sikkim and Malaysia. Harris Jayaraj wrote the music, and Australian Dan Macarthur shot it.

After a string of delays it opened on 5 February 2015. Indian critics were mostly positive. Nearly all of them praised Ajith and, even more, Arun Vijay's villain, though plenty found it too long and too close to things Menon had done before.

• Thriller
• Action
• Drama