Natpe Thunai
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''Natpe Thunai'' () is a 2019 Indian
Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...
-language
sports film A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport or a sports-related topic is prominently featured or is a focus of the plot. D ...
directed by D. Parthiban Desingu in his directorial debut, while Sreekanth Vasrp and Devesh Jeyachandran wrote the story, screenplay and dialogues. Produced by
Sundar C Vinayagar Sundar Vel (born 21 January 1968), known professionally as Sundar C, is an Indian actor, filmmaker, and playback singer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. He has directed over 30 films and received the Kalaimamani#2009, Kalaim ...
and
Khushbu Khushbu Sundar (born Nakhat Khan; 29 September 1970) is an Indian politician, actress, film producer and television personality. She is known for her work predominantly in Tamil cinema, Tamil language films and in a few Telugu cinema, Telugu ...
under the banner Avni Movies, the film stars
Hiphop Tamizha Hiphop Tamizha () is an Indian Musical ensemble, musical duo based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The duo consists of Rangadhithya "Adhi" Ramachandran Venkatapathy and R. Jeeva. Their commercial break-through came with the song "Club le Mabbu le" in ...
, Harish Uthaman, newcomer Anagha and Karu Pazhaniappan alongside actors Sha Ra,
Pandiarajan R. Pandiarajan is an Indian actor, director and comedian who has played leading roles in many humorous Tamil films and plays supporting and comedy roles. Personal life Pandiarajan was born to Sulochana in Saidapet, Chennai in a lower-middle- ...
and
Kausalya Kausalya (, ) is a queen of Kosala in the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. She is the first senior queen consort of Dasharatha, who ruled Kosala from its capital Ayodhya. She is the mother of Rama, the male protagonist of the epic. She is a secondar ...
. It is based on the sport of
field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...
. This is the second film of Adhi as a lead male actor, after '' Meesaya Murukku'' (2017). Apart from acting he also scored the music, while
Aravinnd Singh Aravinnd Singh is an Indian cinematographer and a Film producer who works in the Tamil film industry. He made a breakthrough with his cinematography work in '' Demonte Colony'' (2015) and has since been a regular in films starring Arulnithi. ...
and Fenny Oliver handled the cinematography and editing respectively. The film released on 4 April 2019, to mixed reviews but became a box office success. In 2021, it was remade in Telugu as '' A1 Express''. Adhi was retained as the music director for the Telugu remake too.


Plot

Prabhakaran is a happy-go-lucky youngster in
Pondicherry Pondicherry, officially known as Puducherry, is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of the Puducherry (union territory), Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the southeast coast of Indi ...
whose only ambition is to move to France. To that end, he goes to
Karaikal Karaikal (, , Help:IPA/French, /kaʁikal/) is a port city of the Indian States and territories of India, Union Territory of Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry. It is the administrative headquarters of the Karaikal district, Karaikal Di ...
, where he falls in love with Deepa, a hockey player. Through her, he comes in contact with Shanmugam, a kindhearted retired military man who is the coach of the local hockey team. A corporate is after the ground where Shanmugam's players practice, and they are aided by the local politician Harichandran. By filing a RTI petition about the company, Shanmugam learns about the corporation's plan to build a factory in the ground which will pollute the nearby rivers and harm the nearby villagers. Now to save the ground from the corporate and Harichandran, Shanmugam's students should play with the Pondicherry hockey team and win the match. While selecting the hockey players for his team, he learns that Prabha was the 2012 Junior World Cup Indian hockey team captain who was banned for three years. When Shanmugam asks Prabha to join their hockey team and help them win the match, he refuses and narrates his past and his reasons for leaving hockey. Prabha and Azhar, his childhood friend, are both hockey players. Prabha is an attacker in his team, while Azhar plays in defense in the same team. Prabha, after being selected by national selectors, joins the Indian hockey team and later becomes the captain of the 2012 Junior World Cup competition's Indian hockey team, but Azhar is rejected in the Indian hockey team and asks about this to his coach, who mocks his desire to play hockey as well as his financial status and instead tells him to help his father in his fishing business. Because of this, Azhar commits suicide in grief, and one of Prabha's friends loses his leg to an oncoming train when he tries to save him. When Prabha learns of this, he gets furious and beats up his coach, because of which he is banned for three years. Later, Shanmugam decides to protest against the corporate company's unit being set up there with the help of his students and the local people, but Harichandran uses his dirty tricks and prevents Shanmugam from becoming successful in his protest. Harichandran later acquaints with Prabha's former coach to thwart Shanmugam's team from winning the hockey tournament. After seeing the local people suffering, Prabha decides to join the hockey team and get back the ground. Shanmugam and Prabha train the players, and later, after facing so many difficulties, they win the match and get their ground back. When they come back to the ground, they see Harichandran, who has lost his position now, giving a speech to the press as feeling happy for Shanmugam team's victory. He comes to Prabha and blames the common people for voting leaders monetary benefits and questions Prabha if the people will elect a person who is doing good for them without any money, for which Prabha is unable to find an answer.


Cast

Fenny Oliver (editor), Sreekanth Vasrp (writer), Devesh Jeyachandran (writer), and D. Parthiban Desingu (director) appeared in cameo appearances as stage singers and performers in Sridhar's sister's marriage function.


Production

After a successful outing in '' Meesaya Murukku'', director
Sundar C Vinayagar Sundar Vel (born 21 January 1968), known professionally as Sundar C, is an Indian actor, filmmaker, and playback singer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. He has directed over 30 films and received the Kalaimamani#2009, Kalaim ...
revealed that he is all set to produce another venture that would have
Hiphop Tamizha Hiphop Tamizha () is an Indian Musical ensemble, musical duo based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The duo consists of Rangadhithya "Adhi" Ramachandran Venkatapathy and R. Jeeva. Their commercial break-through came with the song "Club le Mabbu le" in ...
on a film written and directed by debutante Parthiban Desingu which is a film based on hockey. The pooja was held in 15 December, and Hiphop Tamizha confirmed the same by sharing a picture with the film's crew.


Release

The first-look teaser of the film was released on 4 November 2018, which confirmed the title of the film as ''Natpe Thunai''. The film was all set to release on 4 April 2019. The film premiered on 25 August 2019 in
Sun TV (India) Sun TV is an Indian Tamil-language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Sun TV Network. It was launched on 14 April 1993. It is the flagship channel of the Chennai-based media conglomerate Sun Group's Sun TV Network. It w ...
.


Music

The soundtrack album was composed by
Hiphop Tamizha Hiphop Tamizha () is an Indian Musical ensemble, musical duo based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The duo consists of Rangadhithya "Adhi" Ramachandran Venkatapathy and R. Jeeva. Their commercial break-through came with the song "Club le Mabbu le" in ...
, with lyrics written by Hiphop Tamizha, Arivu, Sollisai Selvandhar, and Dr. Vadugam Sivakumar. All the songs in the film were released as singles.


Remake

The film was remade in Telugu as '' A1 Express'' with Sundeep Kishan and Lavanya Tripathi and directed by Dennis Jeevan Kanukolanu.


Critical reception

''Indiatoday'' wrote "Hip Hop Adhi struggles in film stuffed with social messages" Sreedhar Pillai of ''Firstpost'' wrote "A visually appealing, thrilling climax saves this run-of-the-mill sports drama" Film Companion South wrote ". Despite the choppy editing, the final match has a few mildly rousing moments. As a closing punch, we get a reminder to vote responsibly during elections. ".
Sify Sify Technologies Limited (formerly Satyam Infoway) is an Indian information and communications technology (ICT) company providing telecom services, data center services, cloud & managed services, transformation integration services, and ...
rated 3 out of 5 stars stating "Sports entertainer".
The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...
rated 3 out of 5 stars stating "Natpe Thunai feels like a blend of plot threads from various films".
The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...
stated "‘Natpe Thunai’ starring Hip Hop Aadhi packs a punch, especially towards the climax".
The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932 by P. Varadarajulu Naidu. It is headquartered in Noida, owned by the ''Indian Express Group''. It was later taken over by Ramnath Goenka. In 1999, eight y ...
rated 2 out of 5 stars stating "This Aadhi starrer has all the predictable tropes of a sports film but fails to throw up surprises".
The News Minute ''The News Minute'' is an Indian digital news platform based in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded by Vignesh Vellore who is also the current CEO in 2014. Apart from Karnataka, it also has bureaus in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, ...
rated 2 out of 5 stars stating "Sports drama is not new to Tamil cinema but 'Natpe Thunai' spins the package around a new game and a new landscape".
Cinema Express ''Cinema Express'' was an Indian Tamil language, Tamil-language entertainment fortnightly magazine published from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was a part of The New Indian Express, The New Indian Express Group, which also publishes ''Samakalika Mal ...
rated 1.5 out of 5 stars stating "The film is stuck between trying to be a mindless entertainer and taking itself seriously, with a generous infusion of meme material from our social media timelines".
Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English language, English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media Limited, an entity controlled by the Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia, the daughter o ...
rated 2 out of 5 stars stating "Natpe Thunai tries to be too many things at the same time -- it is a sports film that is also a friendship drama and has a political sub-plot. In the end, it does justice to none of the genres".


References


External links

* {{Sundar C 2019 films Indian sports drama films Films scored by Hiphop Tamizha 2010s Tamil-language films 2010s Indian films Tamil films remade in other languages