''Vetri Vizha'' () is a 1989 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

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 l ...

directed by Prathap K. Pothen. It stars Kamal Haasan,

Prabhu ''Prabhu'' means master or the Prince in Sanskrit and many of the Indian languages; it is a name sometimes applied to God. The term is also used by devotees of the Hindu God Lord Krishna/Vishnu as a title and form of address. It is also appended ...

, pairing with Sasikala and

Khushbu Khushbu Sundar (born Nakhat Khan; 29 September 1970) is an Indian actress, politician, film producer and television presenter. She is known for her works predominantly in Tamil, besides Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada films. She is a rec ...

as lead heroine along with Amala in guest appearance. The film was a blockbuster and completed 175-day run at the box office. It is loosely based on the novel '' The Bourne Identity'' by

Robert Ludlum Robert Ludlum (May 25, 1927 – March 12, 2001) was an American author of 27 thriller novels, best known as the creator of Jason Bourne from the original '' The Bourne Trilogy'' series. The number of copies of his books in print is estimated b ...

. ''Vetri Vizha'' was released on 28 October 1989 during the Diwali holiday. Santhi Narayanasamy and T. Manohar produced ''Vetri Vizha'' under the production company Sivaji Productions. The story was written by

K. Rajeshwar K. Rajeshwar is an Indian film director, who has worked in Tamil films. He was active primarily as a film maker and a writer in the 1990s collaborating in ventures which often included Pratap Pothan. Career Rajeshwar grew up in Mumbai and becam ...

and Shanmugapriyan. Cinematography was handled by

Ashok Kumar Kumudlal Ganguly (13 October 1911 – 10 December 2001), better known by his stage name Ashok Kumar and also by Dadamoni, was an Indian actor who attained iconic status in Indian cinema and who was a member of the cinematic Ganguly family. He ...

, the editing was by B. Lenin and V. T. Vijayan, and the art direction was by B. Salim. The first film in which Kamal Haasan and Prabhu co-starred. Filming took place primarily in

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

and

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 ...

Plot

A man ( Kamal Haasan) is being chased by heavily armed men in a

coastline The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in ...

. He takes out a couple of them with his superior skills, but is shot down from a hanging ladder in the

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

trying to rescue him. He washes up on the shores of

unconscious and is rescued by Shirley ( Sasikala), who brings him to her doctor aunt (

Sowcar Janaki Sankaramanchi Janaki (born T. Janaki; 12 December 1931), popularly known as Sowcar Janaki (Tamil) or Shavukaru Janaki (Telugu) or Sahukar Janaki (Kannada), is an Indian actress who has appeared in over 300, films, predominantly in Tamil, Tel ...

). When he wakes up, he realizes that he is suffering from amnesia and has a few flashes of sculptures and a karate class, but does not recognize them. Meanwhile, a local rowdy has been harassing the doctor and her niece. The man manages to thwart their next attack easily, which makes him believe that he might be trained in martial arts. Since the man has enraged the rowdy, the doctor pleads with him to marry her niece for her own protection. He does so and thwarts another attack from the rowdy during their wedding. Right after, he decides to leave for Madras to find his identity with his new wife in town. Soon they find out that the earlier flashes he had are of the sculptures in

Connemara Connemara (; )( ga, Conamara ) is a region on the Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...

Hotel and he used to be a regular there. After getting the bank account number he has used previously in the hotel, he visits the bank and is once again surprised to find out that he was a regular to the bank too and has a locker with a large amount of money, multiple passports of him and a hand gun. While leaving the bank, he is attacked by an unknown assailant in the

lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobil ...

but he once again successfully maims the assailant and escapes, but leaves a shocked witness. His bank locker contents along with his martial arts skills make him believe that he might have been involved in gangs before and decides to surrender to police but is talked out of it by his wife. Vijay (

) and Jaya (

) are part of a wedding band. The man decides to uncover another one of his image flashes and tries to locate the karate class. In one such class, the instructor recognizes him, but guides him towards a singer

Disco Shanti Santha Kumari (born 28 August 1965), famously known as Disco Shanti, is an Indian actress who was particularly famous in South India for her appearances in item numbers. She has appeared in more than 900 films in different languages of India, ...

and tells him that he might be in danger. Another group of assailants attack him, and Vijay and Jaya are caught in the chaos. Believing Vijay to be helping the man, they kidnap Jaya and demand the surrender of the man, but Vijay and the man team up to rescue Jaya, which makes Vijay pledge to help the man in his quest. The man then goes to talk to the singer, but is soon recognized and is shot at. The singer helps him escape and gives him a phone number to contact but is seriously wounded. He contacts the number and barely escapes another attempt on his life, but manages to meet the person who the singer referred to, which happens to be Nithyanandam, the Deputy Inspector General of Police. He finally learns of his true identity. His name is Vetrivel, and he was happily married to Lalitha ( Amala Akkineni), and was an undercover IPS officer who teamed up with the DIG to bring down a notorious hit man Zinda (

Salim Ghouse Salim Ahmad Ghouse (10 January 1952 – 28 April 2022) was an Indian film, television and theatre actor, theatre director, and martial artist. He has acted in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and English films. Early life Salim Ghouse was born ...

). Unable to find any information about Zinda's whereabouts, they devise a plan to make Vetri go undercover and make him a bigger and more dangerous hit man than Zinda, hoping Zinda would get in touch with his fiercest competitor. The plan works, and soon Zinda and Vetri become friends. But soon, Zinda learns about an undercover police officer in his gang through a spy and kidnap Lalitha to oust the spy. Vetri breaks his cover to protect Lalitha, but she is shot and killed, and Vetri is chased (the opening in the movie), but escapes barely. Vetri puts the pieces back together and uncovers a plot by Zinda to assassinate a very popular priest, Baba Appaji (Janagaraj) when he goes to meet up with the singer. Vijay and Vetri thwart his plans, but Zinda still manages to escape. To avenge this,Zinda kidnaps both Vijay's and Vetri's wives and sends them a photographic evidence of the kidnap. But Vetri and Vijay soon find the location with the background signboard in the photo, rescue their wives, and arrest Zinda. Awaiting Zinda's presence in the courtroom for his trial, they are surprised to see an unknown man being presented in the trial as Zinda. This makes them think that the DIG may be the spy who swapped Zinda out and rushes to his house to confront him, but finds him murdered in the arms of his crying wife. Suspicions still exist, and Vetri and Vijay find that the real spy is the DIG's wife, and they confront her. She shows them a lot of cash and asks them to let her go. Vijay sees this, and shoots and nearly kills Vetri for the money, and asks the wife to give him the money and leave. Believing that Vetri is finally dead, she rushes back to Zinda. But Vetri is alive, and this was a plan to make her lead them to Zinda's location. Vetri and Vijay follow her to a ship docked on the port, and go in to arrest Zinda. Zinda and his men are soon overpowered by the two-man fighting machine, but before he dies, he arms a bomb in the ship. Vetri and Vijay collaborate once and successfully disarm the bomb, thus relieving the port of the threat. The movie ends with both of them shaking hands.

Cast

* Kamal Haasan as Vetrivel / Stephen Raj *

as Vijay * Sasikala as Shirley *

as Jaya * Amala as Lalitha (Guest Appearance) * V. K. Ramasamy *

Radha Ravi Madras Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan Ravi (born 29 July 1952) is an Indian actor and politician who played supporting roles throughout his career. He is the son of actor M. R. Radha and the uncle of Vasu Vikram and half-brother of Raadhika. He is a ...

as Nithyanandam * S. S. Chandran as Jaya's brother * Janakaraj as Baba Appaji (Guest Appearance) *

as Zinda * Sudheer as Samuthiran *

Chinni Jayanth Chinni Jayanth (born Krishnamurthy Narayanan on 26 July 1960) is an Indian film director, producer, comedian, actor and mimicry artist who has appeared in many main, character and supporting roles in Tamil films. He is also a popular television ...

as Chinni, Jaya's brother *

Pradeep Shakthi Pradeep Shakthi (25 July 1954 – 20 February 2016) was an Indian Telugu actor, director and businessman. Pradeep Shakthi, born as Raja Vasireddy, was from the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. He was introduced to Telugu cinema by director ...

as Victor *

as Shirley's aunt *

as Reena * Abhilasha *

Thyagu Thozhar Thiyagu (born 30 January 1950), also known as Comrade Thiyagu, is a social activist, politician, writer from Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He is also the General Secretary of Tamil National Liberation Movement and is well known for his ...

as Groom *

Kullamani Kullamani (1952–2013) was an Indian actor and comedian who appeared in South Indian films. He acted over 500 films. He is known for films like '' Karagattakaran'', '' Apoorva Sagodharargal'', ''Panakkaran'', '' My Dear Marthandan'', and many mo ...

as Jaya's brother * Mayilsamy as Mayilsamy, Jaya's brother *

LIC Narasimhan LIC Narasimhan was an Indian character actor who appeared in Tamil-language films. He has appeared in over 300 films and was also seen on the small screen and in ads. He was working for LIC as an officer, quit his job to take up a career in ...

as S Ganapathy, Bank Manager *

Vikram Dharma Vikram Dharma (born as R. N. Dharmaseelan in 1956 – 28 June 2006) was an Indian action choreographer in the Tamil film industry (also known as Kollywood) in Indian cinema. He won the Filmfare Award for Best Action for '' Yuva''. He was the ...

(Elevator fight sequence) (uncredited) * Ponnambalam (uncredited) * R. K. (uncredited)

Production

The film is Pratap Pothen's fifth directorial and third in Tamil after '' Meendum Oru Kaathal Kathai'' and '' Jeeva'' and was loosely inspired by the novel '' The Bourne Identity'', written by

in 1980. Bollywood actor

made his Tamil debut with this film, portraying the antagonist. Prabhu's character was not present in the novel, and was created for the film.

Prabhu Deva Prabhu Deva (born 3 April 1973) is an Indian dance choreographer, film director, producer and actor who has worked predominantly in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada language films. In a career spanning 32 years, he has performed and designed a ...

working as dance assistant to his father Sundaram Master choreographed a song independently for ''Vetri Vizha''.

Soundtrack

This music and background score was composed by Ilaiyaraaja. For the dubbed Telugu version ''Vijethalu'', lyrics were written by

Rajasri Rajasree (Rajasree Thota Panchajanyam, Kusuma Kumari, born 31 August 1945), also known as Rajasri or Rajashri, is an Indian actress active from 1956 to 1979. She is particularly famous for her portrayal as a princess in several folklore Telug ...

Release and reception

''Vetri Vizha'' was released on 28 October 1989. The film ran for over 175 days in theatres.

Re-release

A digitally restored version of the film was released on 4 August 2017.

References

External links

* {{Pratap K. Pothen 1980s Tamil-language films 1989 action films 1989 films Fictional portrayals of the Tamil Nadu Police Films about amnesia Films about musical groups Films directed by Pratap Pothen Films scored by Ilaiyaraaja Films set in Goa Films shot in India Indian action films