Pichaikkaran

Pichaikkaaran (transl. Beggar) is a 2016 Indian Tamil-language action-comedy thriller drama film written and directed by Sasi, produced by Fatima Vijay Antony and starring Vijay Antony and Satna Titus, with Bagavathi Perumal, Vazhakku En Muthuraman, and Dheepa Ramanujam in supporting roles. Antony also composed the music for the film.[2][3] The story is about Arul (Vijay Antony), a billionaire businessman who leads a 48-day long secret life as a beggar as part of a religious offering to save his hopeless dying mother.

Pichaikkaran
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sasi
Produced by	Fatima Vijay Antony
Written by	Sasi
Starring	Vijay Antony Satna Titus
Music by	Vijay Antony
Cinematography	Prasanna Kumar
Edited by	Veera Senthil Raj
Production company	Vijay Antony Film Corporation
Distributed by	KR Films Skylark Entertainment
Release date	4 March 2016 (2016-03-04) (India)
Running time	130 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	₹36 crore (US$5.0 million)
Box office	₹185 crore (US$26 million)[1]

The film was released on 4 March 2016.[4] The Telugu dubbed version was titled as Bichagadu and was released on 13 May 2016.[5] In 2017, the film was dubbed into Hindi as Roadside Rowdy';. The movie was remade in Odia as Baby, in Marathi as Bhikari and in Kannada as Amma I Love You.[6]

Plot

Arul Selvakumar (Vijay Antony) is a rich businessman based out of Palladam, Tirupur district. His mother Bhuvaneshwari (Dheepa Ramanujam) is the person behind the growth of their textile business following her husband's early death. Avinashi (Vazhakku En Muthuraman) is her brother-in-law who is money minded and has plans to grab Arul's properties. Arul returns from abroad after graduation and takes charge of all the business responsibilities of his mother. In the meantime, Bhuvaneshwari meets with an accident in the factory and falls into coma. All the efforts taken by Arul for her treatment are in vain. Accidentally he meets a sage where his mother is being treated who conveys to him there is a possible way to save his mother. Arul on hearing this assures the sage that he will do whatever needed to save his mother. The sage advises him to lead a 48-day life of a beggar with two conditions. First being that he shouldn't reveal himself and secondly, he shouldn't say this to anyone. If he completes it, his mother will have a chance to survive.

With no other way to save his mother, Arul accepts both conditions and informs his friend Rajesh (Bagavathi Perumal) to look after the business until he returns. Arul travels to Chennai and joins other beggars by a temple and starts begging. He comes across Magizhini (Satna Titus) and develops affection seeing her good heart. Arul recalls that he and his mother had initially decided to approach Magizhini for an alliance through a matrimonial site. Magizhini also encounters Arul in a few situations and likes his character not knowing that he is a beggar. Avinashi comes to know the absence of Arul and tries to take over Arul's business. In a wedding ceremony, Magizhini comes to know that Arul is a beggar and gets angry thinking Arul has misled her. She still couldn't avoid him as she is impressed more by his good nature. One day Magizhini's mother gets to see Arul's photo in her laptop and recalls that he is a rich businessman and also she had shared her photos to him through the matrimony website a few months ago. Magizhini is shocked and tries to meet Arul where she overhears the conversation between Arul and Rajesh which makes her realise Arul's life as a beggar is to save his mother and she is impressed seeing his good nature. Rajesh urges Arul to return but Arul refuses to come with him. Magizhini decides not to disturb Arul until his life as a beggar is still incomplete.

Meanwhile, there is a group of doctors who manage a mental health centre and use the patients for their medical experiments and Arul gets to know this with the help of a beggar who stays there pretending as a mentally challenged girl. Knowing this, the doctors hire goons to murder Arul. Arul manages to escape from the gang. On the last day as a beggar, Arul is spotted by Avinashi and he tries to kill him but accidentally, Magizhini gets stabbed in her neck and is admitted to hospital. Arul, who is yet to complete his beggar life is left hopeless as he is unable to pay the hospital expenses for Magizhini. His beggar friends come up with some money to help Arul while Avinashi is arrested by police.

Arul gets back to his home after 48 days along with Rajesh to visit his mother and learns that there is no improvement in her health. Arul holds his mother's hands and begs her to live longer. Suddenly he feels his mother's hands moving. After six months, his mother has completely recovered and both Arul and Magizhini get married. A beggar begs Arul in front of a temple but Arul being busy with a phone call fails to notice the beggar. Arul's mother gives alms to the beggar and conveys to Arul that life of a beggar is so pathetic and we should never hurt them as people like us cannot lead a beggar's life even a single day. Arul apologises to his mother for not noticing the beggar. The film ends with Arul's mother never learning of her son's struggle as a beggar to bring her back to health and Magizhini is very proud of her husband.

Cast

• Vijay Antony as Arul
• Satna Titus as Magizhini
• Bagavathi Perumal as Rajesh
• Vazhakku En Muthuraman as Avinashi, Arul's uncle
• Dheepa Ramanujam as Bhuvaneshwari, Arul's mother
• Kala as Magizhini's mother
• Rakshita as Thilagam
• Sandhyababu Eelwar as Muttai
• Tharshan as Half Boil
• Karthi as Omelet
• Balakrishnan as NGO Manager
• Janaki Amma as Sun Paati
• Lalitha as Valantha
• Thalayan as Traffic police
• Suresh as Inspector
• Gunasekhar as Hospital manager
• Thamizh Puli as Catering supervisor
• Mohan Raman as Audi Car Owner
• Vinod Sagar

Production

Sasi began the production of Pichaikkaran in October 2014, and signed on Vijay Antony to feature in the lead role. The pair had earlier worked together in Dishyum (2006), in which Vijay Antony had composed the film's music.[2] The team shot a schedule in Pollachi near Everwin Spinning Mills near Achipatty village in January 2015, before moving to Puducherry by June 2015.[7][8]

Soundtrack

Pichaikkaran
Soundtrack album to Pichaikkaran by Vijay Antony
Released	4 March 2016
Recorded	2016
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Language	Tamil
Label	Vijay Antony Music Divo
Producer	Vijay Antony
Vijay Antony chronology
Aavi Kumar (2015) Pichaikkaran (2016) Nambiar (2016)

The film's soundtrack album and background score were composed by Vijay Antony in his second collaboration with Sasi after Dishyum. The soundtrack album consist of seven tracks. The album was released on 7 January 2016. Behindwoods rated the album 2.25 out of 5 and noted that "Overall a pretty decent album but it does have a couple of thumping numbers!".[9]

No.	Song	Singers	Length (m:ss)
1	Glamour Song	Velmurugan	4:10
2	Nenjorathil (Female)	Supriya Joshi	4:13
3	Nooru Samigal	Vijay Antony Sujay sk	2:44
4	Unakkaga Varuven	Janaki Iyer	3:39
5	Oru Vellai Sotrukkaga	Yazin Nizar	3:31
6	Nenjorathil (Male)	Deepak Doddera	4:13
7	Pichaikkaran (Theme Music)	Ananthu	1:07

Release

Critical reception

Rediff wrote "Sasi’s Pichaikkaran may have overdosed on action and sentiment but the director manages to portray life from the other side. The humiliation and pain of people we meet and choose to ignore on a daily basis stays with you".[10]

Hindustan Times wrote "One of the biggest drawbacks of many Indian movies is its lethargic attitude towards perfecting a script -- not drawing the line from one point to another with any fair degree of conviction. Pichaikkaran thus ends up as a beggar begging for credibility".[11]

Moviecrow wrote "This Pichaikkaran is neither poor to beg nor rich to offer".[12]

Behindwoods gave it a 3.25/5 saying that "Excessive exaggerations and lack of depth in the dealing make Pichaikkaran not an easy affair".[13]

Indiaglitz gave it a 3.8/5 saying that "[It] makes the right impact as a wholesome entertainer with emotional scenes as his strong base".[14]

Baradwaj Rangan of the Hindu called it "A not-bad drama marred by generic writing" in his review[15]

Box office

The movie brought in ₹125 crore from the Tamil version and ₹60 crore from the Telugu version which makes the worldwide gross collection almost ₹185 crore.[1]

Sequel

A sequel titled Pichaikkaran 2 was announced on 24 July 2020, which is scheduled to be released on 2021.[16]

References

1. "Pichaikkaran collected a total of Rs 126 crore and Bichagadu has collected Rs 60 crore at the worldwide box office in its lifetime". International Business Times. 3 November 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
2. "Music director Vijay Antony to become a 'Pichaikaran'". behindwoods.com.
3. "Vijay Antony commences his new film". Sify.
4. http://www.sify.com/movies/pichaikkaran-review-entertaining-review-tamil-qdeqQDheahffe.html
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8PX8zbWj_0
6. "Each time I have worked on a remake my compositions have stood out:Gurukiran", Times of India, 9 June 2018
7. "Pichaikaaran in Pollachi". indiaglitz.com.
8. Suthan Bala (4 July 2015). "'Pichaikaaran' to release soon — Tamil Cinema News". Tamil Cinema News. Archived from the original on 10 July 2015.
9. "Pichaikaaran (aka) Pitchaikkaran songs review". Retrieved 14 September 2016.
10. "Review: Pichaikkaran is a thought-provoking entertainer". Retrieved 14 September 2016.
11. "Pichaikkaran review: This film is begging for authenticity". 5 March 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
12. "Pichaikkaran Review — Interesting Knot, Average masala". Retrieved 14 September 2016.
13. "Pichaikaaran (aka) Pitchaikkaran review". Retrieved 14 September 2016.
14. "Pichaikkaran review. Pichaikkaran Tamil movie review, story, rating — IndiaGlitz.com". Retrieved 14 September 2016.
15. https://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/cinema-reviews/pichaikaaran-review-a-notbad-drama-marred-by-generic-writing/article8315721.ece
16. "Vijay Antony annouces 'Pichaikkaran 2' with a first look poster". the hindu.com.

External links

• Pichaikkaran on IMDb