Aanai

Aanai (transl. Order) is a 2005 Indian Tamil-language vigilante action film directed and co-written by Selva. The film stars Arjun, Namitha and Keerthi Chawla, while Vadivelu, Sanghavi and Manoj K. Jayan play pivotal roles. D. Imman composed the soundtrack, while Shiva was the cinematographer for the venture which released in December 2005. It is a remake of the 2004 American film Man on Fire.^[1] The film was released on 2 December 2005.^[2]

Aanai
DVD cover
Directed by	Selva
Written by	Selva G. K. Gopinath
Produced by	K. S. Sreenivasan
Starring	Arjun Namitha Keerthi Chawla
Cinematography	K. S. Shiva
Edited by	S. Sathish J. N. Harsh
Music by	Karthick Babu
Production company	Vasan Visual Ventures
Release date	2 December 2005 (2005-12-02)
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Plot

Vijay is an ex-police officer who is persuaded by his former boss to be the bodyguard of a millionaire's 8-year-old daughter named Priya. However, Priya gets kidnapped by a militant called Ahmed Khan in London, where Vijay sets out on a rampage to exact vengeance and save Priya.

Cast

• Arjun as Vijay
• Namitha as Ramya
• Keerthi Chawla as Sandhya
• Sanghavi as Meena Jayaram
• Annapurnamma as Vijay's mother
• Vadivelu
• Manoj K. Jayan as Jayaram
• Baby Taj as Priya
• Ranganath
• Aryan
• Thalaivasal Vijay
• Delhi Ganesh
• Halwa Vasu
• Mahadevan as police inspector
• OAK Sundar as police officer
• Junior Silk
• Thambi Ramaiah as RTO officer
• Krishnamoorthy

Production

Selva, who had directed Arjun in Karnaa (1995) and the long delayed Manikanda (2006) was signed by Vasan Visual Ventures to work with him again. The actor signed on for a hiked price of one crore rupees, following the success of his previous film Giri.^[3] The unit had a 15-day shooting stint in Hyderabad in February 2005, with two of the lead actresses Namitha and Sanghavi involved in the shoot.^[4] The film featured a new editing technique tried by Satish and Harsha, while the team shot three songs with Arjun and Namitha in London, notably near the London Eye and Windsor Castle.^[5] Another song was shot with Arjun and Namitha at the Mohan Studio in Chennai, with the actor notably wearing four inch heels to make up for height difference with the actress.^[6] This is the Tamil debut of Keerthi Chawla.^[7] During the making of the film, allegations arose that Arjun had been sending lewd messages to Namitha, which led to a brief furore on sets.^[8]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was composed by D. Imman.^[9]

Track listing

No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Aanai" (English)	D. Imman	D. Imman
2.	"Hey Idupattum"	Pa. Vijay	D. Imman, Srilekha Parthasarathy
3.	"Azhagiya Darisanam"	Palani Bharathi	Madhu Balakrishnan, Binni Krishnakumar
4.	"Chinnajiru Kilye"	Bharathiyar	Ananthu
5.	"Figurudan Oru Naal"	Na. Muthukumar	Karthik, Saindhavi
6.	"Kumru Kumrur"	Pa. Vijay	Sirkazhi Sivachidambaram, Annupamaa
7.	"Midukkanavaney"	Pa. Vijay	Balram, Mathangi Jagdish
8.	"Sare Jahan Se Acha"	Muhammad Iqbal	Srinivas
9.	"Enthan Varungala Veetukaraney"	Victor Dass	Rita Thyagarajan

Critical reception

S. R. Ashok Kumar of The Hindu wrote, "Director Selva has wrapped it all up quite well but it is in the second half that he loses his way letting some unwanted songs and fights hamper the flow", criticised Chawla's performance but praised K. S. Shiva's cinematography, Gopinath's dialogues, and Selva's screenplay and direction.^[10] Sify wrote, "what could have been an edge-of-the-seat thriller ends up as a badly made mass-masala movie", concluding that the film is "disappointing".^[11] Malini Mannath Chennai Online wrote "It's a typical Arjun flick with guns blazing and the 'Action King' all set out to destroy his new set of enemies single-handedly. But this time the foes are not from across the border — probably there has been a surfeit of it — so the patriotism factor, so much a part of his films, is missing here. And for Arjun, it's just yet another role to re-establish his credentials as the 'Action King', for, how much variations can he bring into a role he'd done innumerable times earlier!".^[12]