Ratchagan

Infobox_Film
name = Ratchagan

director = Praveenkanth
writer = Crazy Mohan
starring = Nagarjuna Sushmita Sen Vadivelu Raghuvaran Girish Karnad S.P. Balasubramaniam Ajay Rathnam
producer = KT.Kunjumon
music = A.R. Rahman
distributor =
released = 1997
runtime =
language = Tamil
budget = Rs. 170,000,000
imdb_id = 0485270

"Ratchagan" is a record breaking, trendsetting blockbuster Tamil movie starring Nagarjuna and Sushmita Sen in the lead role and also stars Raghuvaran, SP Balasubramanyam, Vadivelu and Girish Karnad. The music is composed by A.R. Rahman. It held the record for the biggest budget for a Tamil film until Jeans. Kunjumon lost much of his money in this movie. The film was directed by Praveenkanth.

Plot

Ajay (Nagarjuna) an unemployed youth who always gets into trouble because of his temper. This loud and angry young man gets heated up when he sees anyone committing a crime; he takes the law in his own hands... beats them up and then gives them some free advice. Ajay’s father (SP Balasubramanyam) is very unhappy at his son’s attitude, and tries his level of best to change Ajay but he fails in this matter. Ajay meets Soniya (Sushmita Sen) and she falls for him instantly. What Soniya likes about Ajay is his temper. Soniya gets Ajay’s father S.P.B’s help to get Ajay to love her. Ajay is not interested in her at first; but later changes his mind and falls in love with her.

Soniya’s father Sriram (Girish Karnad) a businessman, has no objection to his daughter’s relationship... But has one condition; which is , Ajay must control his temper for 3 months and not get into any fight what so ever, even though he sees a crime happening in front of his eyes. If Ajay doesn’t succeed he can’t marry Soniya. With a heavy heart Ajay agrees to the condition, and Sriram offers Ajay a job in his factory. Sriram actually has his own problems in his factory; 10 of his workers are working with his rival and younger brother Easwar (Raghuvaran). Easwar is trying to put Sriram out of business and so his 10 people create havoc in the factory by killing old workers and "ragging" new workers. So when Ajay comes to work in Sriram’s factory these 10 people do the same to Ajay. Ajay keeps cool, trying to keep his promise to Sriram. But Sriram hopes otherwise; he wants Ajay to break the promise and beat up the 10 people and throw them out of the factory; At the same time, Sriram hopes that the imminent marriage between Ajay and Soniya would get cancelled, since he doesn’t want his daughter to be married to a "gangster/street fighter" like Ajay. So Sriram keeps on hoping that Ajay will somehow "burst out" so that his plans will succeed.

oundtrack

The soundtrack consists of 9 songs (including the theme music). "Sonia Sonia" proved to be a very popular number upon release:

# Soniya soniya - Udit Narayan, Unnikrishnan and Harini
# Bombay, Madras, Delhi - Gopal and Kavitha Poudwal
# Chandiraniai thottathu yar - Hariharan and Sujatha
# Pogum vazhiyellam - K. S. Chithra,
# Lucky lucky - S P Balasubrahmanyam, Sukhwinder Singh and Swarnalatha
# Nenje nenje - K J Yesudas and Sadhana Sargam
# Kaiyil mithakkum - Shreeni
# Mercury pookkal - Anupama and Swarnalatha
# Theme Music - A R Rahman

Cast and crew

*Cast : Nagarjuna, Sushmita Sen, Vadivelu, Raghuvaran, SP Balasubramanyam, Girish Karnad
*Director : Praveenkanth
*Cinematography : Ajayan Vincent
*Assistant Cinematographer: Nataraj
*Editing : B.Lenin
*Producer : K.T. Kunjumon
*Music : A.R. Rahman

Miscellanea

* This is Telugu actor Nagarjuna's first Tamil film
* This was the first movie of former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen.
*The film has accompanied by score and songs by A. R. Rahman.
*It was directed by debutant Praveen Kanth.
*The film was later dubbed in Telugu as "Rakshakudu".

External links

*imdb title|id=0485270|title=Ratchagan