''Teddy'' is a 2021 Indian

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

-language

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

action film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...

written and directed by

Shakti Soundar Rajan Shakti Soundar Rajan is an Indian film director who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. Career Rajan worked as an assistant director to Venkat Prabhu. His debut movie was '' Naanayam,'' released in 2010. In 2014, he directed '' Naaigal Jaak ...

. The film stars a teddy bear in the titular role as a special character, while

Arya Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...

along with

Sayyeshaa Sayyeshaa Saigal (born 12 August 1997), known mononymously as Sayyeshaa, is an Indian actress and dancer who primarily appears in Tamil-language films. After working in a Telugu film ''Akhil'' (2015), she made her Hindi debut in Ajay Devgn's '' ...

feature in the lead roles. Remade in telugu as buddy.

Sathish Sathish Muthukrishnan (born 23 May 1987) is an Indian actor and comedian working in the Tamil film industry. He made a breakthrough portraying a role alongside Sivakarthikeyan in '' Ethir Neechal'' (2013). He won Edison Award for Best Comedian ...

, Karunakaran and

Magizh Thirumeni Magizh Thirumeni is an Indian film director who has worked Tamil language films. After working as an assistant to directors, Selvaraghavan and Gautham Vasudev Menon, he directed five films, including the action thrillers ''Thadaiyara Thaakka'' ...

play supporting roles in the film The music is composed by

D. Imman Immanuel Vasanth Dinakaran (born 24 January 1983), better known as D. Imman, is an Indian film composer and singer, predominantly working in Tamil cinema. Also worked in Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, and Hindi film industry. His first film as mu ...

and film is produced by

K. E. Gnanavel Raja K. E. Gnanavel Raja is an Indian film producer and entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu, India. He initially began his career by producing and distributing films starring Suriya and Karthi, before branching out to own two studios — Studio Green and A ...

under his production banner Studio Green. It is the first Tamil film to use an Indian animation company to design a special animated character and the second motion-capture film in

after ''

Kochadaiiyaan ''Kochadaiiyaan: The Legend'' () is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language 3D animated action film written by K. S. Ravikumar and directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth. It is India's first photorealistic motion capture film, featuring characters whose de ...

'' (2014). The film was released worldwide on 12 March 2021 via

Hotstar Disney+ Hotstar (also known as Hotstar) is an Indian brand of subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Novi Digital Entertainment of Disney Star and operated by Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, both d ...

and received generally mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

Srividya Purushottaman alias Sri is a college student, who helps a person faced an accident, in return for having her hand injured. She is sent to a hospital where she is given IV drugged to cause an artificially induced coma. Sri awakens and is given the medicine, where her soul gets transferred to a

Teddy bear A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy b ...

. Shivanarayanan aka Shiva is an unemployed graduate, who is having an

eidetic memory Eidetic memory ( ; more commonly called photographic memory or total recall) is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only onceThe terms ''eidetic memory'' and ''pho ...

and OCD which makes him learn things faster. After his mother, Lakshmi and his friend take him to meet Dr. Priya Gopal, who is a psychiatrist for a session, but to no avail. One night, Shiva saves a teenager from goons where Sri (whose soul is in the teddy bear) witness the fight and meets him in the morning. Shiva first believes to be a dream, but soon understands that it's real. Sri tells Shiva that she needs to see her boyfriend Rishi, where Sri and Shiva realize that Rishi is a fraud and Sri gets heart broken. After Shiva and his friend Ramachandran take Srividya to her house, he sees Sri's father Purushottaman trying to commit suicide, Shiva saves him and her mother requests them to find her. Shiva promises to find Srividya. Shiva and Sri investigates to find her body, that was transferred from the hospital. Shiva sends Sri as a package with a

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

from the hospital and also gives her a smartphone to track the location where the parcel would be sent. The parcel reaches the destination, which turns to be

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

where Sri uses a phone of a beggar and takes a selfie in front of a restaurant and send it to Shiva through

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

. Shiva sells all the shares for expenses and travels to Azerbaijan. While traveling, He meets Karthik, who had been working in Azerbaijan for three years. Shiva and Sri unite and makes Karthik to believe the story divulged by Shiva. They decided to search for Sri's body in one of the brothel in the place. Sri found the same tattoo that she saw in the hands of the parcel deliverer. Deducing the clues given by the person, Shiva realized about the huge medical scam and deduced that they had kidnapped Sri for her rare-blood type live-organs which is used to cure billionaires. The mastermind behind the scam is Dr. Varadharajan, who runs an illegal organ scam and also injected many people to cause induced coma and taking away their wanted live-organs in their secret hospital in countryside. Shiva and Sri seek the help of the police where they legally solve the case. Sri becomes conscious, while the soul in the Teddy leaves. Sri can't remember Shiva and his hard effort made to save her. They arrive back to India and Sri reunites with her parents. One year later, Sri starts following Shiva and takes pictures of him, as she developed unconditional feelings for him. Shiva reciprocates her feelings, where they get married and lead a happy life. Shiva realizes that when Sri falls asleep, her soul gets transferred back to the Teddy.

Cast

as Shivanarayanan aka Shiva *

as Srividya Purushottaman (Sri) * Nimmi Harshan (voice) & E.B. Gokulan (motion capture) as Teddy *

Sakshi Agarwal Sakshi Agarwal is an Indian actress and model who has appeared in Tamil films and in a few Kannada and Malayalam films. After beginning her working career as a marketing consultant, she pursued acting and garnered attention through part time mo ...

as Dr. Priya Gopal (

Guest Appearance In show business, a guest appearance is the participation of an outsider performer (such as a musician or actor) in an event such as a music record or concert, show, etc., when the performer does not belong to the regular band, cast, or other ...

) *

as Dr. Varadarajan *

as Ramachandran, Shiva's friend * Karunakaran as Karthik * Raja Rudrakodi as Rishi - Srividya's Boyfriend * Masoom Shankar as Sarah *

R. N. R. Manohar R. N. R. Manohar (died 17 November 2021) was an Indian actor and director. He directed films like ''Maasilamani'' (2009) and ''Vellore Maavattam'' (2011). Career RNR Manohar started his career as a child artist, having played roles in films suc ...

as Purushottaman, Srividya's father * Mona Bedre as Srividya's mother *

Praveena Praveena is an Indian Television actress and a dubbing artist who predominantly appears in Malayalam films, she has also appeared in Tamil and Telugu films. She started her acting career through 1992 film ''Gowri''. She has received several ...

as Lakshmi, Shiva's mother * Abdool Lee as Varadharajan's assistant * Shabeer Kallarakkal as Harish * Pradeep K Vijayan *Yoann Periver as Rabbids

Production

The film was announced by director Shakti Soundar Rajan in March 2019 which also marked his fifth directorial venture and maiden collaboration with actor Arya. The

principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

of the film commenced in May 2019. Sakshi Agarwal was approached to play a supporting role after participating in the reality TV show ''

Bigg Boss Tamil 3 ''Bigg Boss 3'' was the third season of the reality TV game show ''Bigg Boss'', which commenced on 23 June 2019 with 17 contestants (15 first-day entrants, 2 wildcard entrants, and 1 re–entrant). Kamal Haasan returned as host for the show thir ...

''. Director Magizh Thirumeni who was known for his directorial '' Thadam'' was cast to play a supporting role which also marked his acting debut. The theme of the film revolves around the special character Teddy Bear in animation which would appear for nearly 80 minutes of the film. The film was predominantly shot in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and in a few locations across Europe. The shooting portion of the film was wrapped up in February 2020. In June 2020, Thirumeni confirmed the film would proceed with a theatrical release, despite rumours that they were exploring an over-the-top media service release.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film is composed by

, continuing his collaboration with the director for the third time after ''

Miruthan ''Miruthan'' () is a 2016 Indian Tamil-language action horror film written and directed by Shakti Soundar Rajan, starring Jayam Ravi, Lakshmi Menon and Anikha Surendran. D. Imman composed the music, while Venkatesh S. handled the cinematograp ...

'' (2016) and '' Tik Tik Tik'' (2018). The lyrics are written by Madhan Karky. The first single ''En Iniya Thanimaye'' which was sung by

Sid Sriram Sidharth "Sid" Sriram (born 19 May 1990) is an Indian Carnatic musician, music producer, playback singer, and songwriter. He is an R&B songwriter and has been working in the Tamil ,Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi and English musi ...

was released on 14 February 2020 coinciding with the

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, thr ...

. Later the video song of "En Iniya Thanimaye" was released on 1 March 2021.

Release

''Teddy'' was scheduled to release on 24 April 2020, but was postponed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

in India. The film was released worldwide via

on 12 March 2021.

Baradwaj Rangan Baradwaj Rangan is an Indian film critic, writer, and formerly the deputy editor of ''The Hindu''. He later became a senior editor of Film Companion. Rangan won the National Film Award for Best Film Critic in 2006. Before joining ''The Hindu' ...

of Film Companion South wrote, "Tamil cinema's high-concept king, Shakti Soundar Rajan, takes a tumble with this story about a giant talking bear."

References

External links

* {{Teddy bears Films scored by D. Imman Films shot in Chennai Films shot in Europe Films shot in Tamil Nadu Films using motion capture Indian films with live action and animation Fictional teddy bears Disney+ Hotstar original films 2020s fantasy action films Indian fantasy action films Films about obsessive–compulsive disorder 2020s Tamil-language films Films about bears