''Rishi'' is a 2001 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

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

written and directed 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 ...

. The film stars R. Sarathkumar in a

dual role A dual role (also known as a double role) refers to one actor playing two roles in a single production. Dual roles (or a larger number of roles for an actor) may be deliberately written into a script, or may instead be a choice made during produc ...

alongside

Meena Meena () is a tribe from northern and western India which is sometimes considered a sub-group of the Bhil community. It used to be claimed they speak Mina language, a Spurious languages, spurious language. Its name is also transliterated as ' ...

and

Sanghavi Sanghavi (born Kavya Ramesh) is an Indian actress and a model known for her work predominantly in Tamil and Telugu films. She was one of the leading actresses in South Indian cinema from 1993 to 2004. In a career spanning 15 years, she has ...

, while

Arun Pandian Arun Pandian is an Indian actor, film director, film producer and politician who predominately works in Tamil films. He began his career as an actor as part of the critically acclaimed film '' Oomai Vizhigal'' (1986). After retiring from acting ...

and

Prakash Raj Prakash Raj (born Prakash Rai; 26 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director, producer, television presenter, and politician. Known for his works in Telugu language, Telugu, Tamil language, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, English language, Engl ...

plays the supporting roles. The music was composed by

Yuvan Shankar Raja Yuvan Shankar Raja (born 31 August 1979), is an Indian composer and playback singer. He mainly scores music for Tamil films along with few Telugu, Kannada, and Hindi films. Considered a versatile composer, he is particularly known for his use o ...

, cinematography by

U. K. Senthil Kumar U. K. Senthil Kumar is an Indian cinematographer, who has worked in the Tamil cinema, Tamil and Malayalam film industries. Career A native of Coimbatore, Senthil Kumar belongs to the 1989-92 batch of the Government Film Institute, Chennai, and ...

, and editing by P. Sai Suresh. The film released on 16 February 2001. The core plot was partially reported to be inspired by the 1989 Hong Kong film '' The Killer''.

Plot

Rishi is a tough, suave, professional criminal who is the right-hand of Sathya, the underworld kingpin. On one of Rishi's missions, he happens to watch Minister Devaraj killing Hema, a TV reporter who is about to expose him. Before dying, Hema hands a floppy to Rishi. Rishi neither bothers about the floppy nor the murder, but Devaraj wants the floppy back. Things get confusing because of Velu, who looks like Rishi and gets into trouble. Velu is the opposite of Rishi: he is simple-minded, takes life easy, and works for a moneylender. The "seth" lends money for buying cars, and Velu, with his friend Cheenu, persuades errant customers to either repay dues or part with their cars. Complications arise when the paths of the duo cross, for Rishi and Velu are lookalikes. Only Indu, a salesgirl, seems to have some family to speak of. The narration moves smoothly forward with Rishi and Velu leading their own lives, then their paths cross. One is mistaken for the other, and complications arise. The underworld guns for Velu. Meanwhile, Rishi turns over a new leaf when one of his tasks ends up in a singer and dancer named Nandhini being blinded. He saves her life, finances for her eye operation, and turns her protector, knowing fully well that she could identify him and the rest of the gang. He even parts ways with Sathya on the issue, but his is unwilling to let him go. Indu, who becomes Velu's girlfriend, sees Rishi with Nandini and misunderstands Velu for his duplicity. Velu is puzzled when he is attacked by a gang who demands the floppy from him. When Indu accuses him of having an affair with Nandini she sees him in the hospital, Velu visits the hospital and encounters Rishi. The duo strikes a good rapport. The puzzle pieces fall in place. Devaraj, realising that his ministerial position is shaky, kidnaps Nandini, with Sathya's help and blackmails Rishi to kill the Chief Minister, but Velu goes in his place. The scene where he tries to warn the security personnel about the assassination attempt, only to find that they too are part of the conspiracy is taken straight from a Die Hard 2 The movie ends rather abruptly, with Velu being shot, the Chief Minister's life being saved by Rishi and Devaraj getting arrested.

Cast

Production

The film was initially titled ''Sri Ramajayam'' but ran into production trouble, before being relaunched and retitled as ''Rishi''. The film was shot in Chennai and song sequences were shot in Switzerland. During the making of the film, there were reports that the film had a similar storyline to another Tamil film which was in production, ''

Citizen Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality ...

'' (2001).

Soundtrack

The music was composed by

, who teamed up with Sundar C for the second time after ''

Unakkaga Ellam Unakkaga ''Unakkaga Ellam Unakkaga'' () is a 1999 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy film written and directed by Sundar C, starring Karthik and Rambha in the lead roles with Goundamani, Vivek, Vinu Chakravarthy, Anju among others in supporting ro ...

''. It was released via the label

Saregama Saregama India Ltd is an Indian music record label and content company headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. It is the oldest music label in India, established in 1901 as the Indian branch of the British Gramophone Company. It later became ...

Reception

Malini Mannath of ''Chennai Online'' called it "An unpretentious, fairly engaging entertainer". ''

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 ...

'' wrote, "All the characters looks superficial and even the comedy track is disappointing. Clumsily acted and superficially directed ''Rishi'' is a sleep inducing film". ''Indiainfo'' wrote, "Sundar.C tries to shift track from comedy to action and Sarath kumar tries to be a

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

. Both of them fail miserably and should stick to what they are good at".

References

External links

* * 2000s Indian films 2000s Tamil-language films 2001 action films 2001 films Films about lookalikes Films directed by Sundar C Films scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja Films shot in Switzerland Indian action films Tamil-language action films Tamil-language Indian films {{Improve categories, date=March 2024