Billa is a 2007 blockbuster Tamil feature film directed by Vishnuvardhan. Based on the 1980 released Billa starring Rajnikanth, as well as the 2006 released Bollywood film, Don, it was adapted by the director, who rewrote portions of the film from the original. Ajith Kumar and Nayantara played the lead roles while Prabhu Ganesan, Rahman, Namitha, Adithya and Santhanam were also part of the cast. The film was produced, released and distributed worldwide by Ayngaran International on December 14, 2007. The film was later remade in Telugu with the same title Billa (2009 film) with a guest appearance by Jayasudha.[2] She had starred in the first Telugu remake of Don (1978 film) titled Yugandhar (1979).
The film grossed $10 million at the box office. The theatrical rights of the film was purchased by Pyramid Saimira. In 2008, the film was selected to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Ajith Kumar and Vishnuvardhan had attended the screening at Cannes, France.
Plot
The story begins with a sadistic underworld don David Billa (Ajith Kumar), on Interpol’s criminal list, hiding and operating out of Malaysia.
DSP Jayprakash (Prabhu Ganesan) has spent the last few years looking for Billa, leaving behind a life in India.
During a chase with the police Billa is severely wounded after an accident and dies in front of the DSP. The DSP then secretly holds a burying of Billa. Interpol Officer Gokulnath (Rahman) is assigned to work with DSP Jayaprakash to capture elusive Billa as no-one knows of Billa's death. DSP Jayaprakash keeps the death of Billa as a secret even from his fellow officers, and tracks down a look-alike called Saravana Velu (Ajith Kumar), a lowly pick-pocket . He asks Velu to infiltrate Billa's gang by pretending to be Billa. In return he will make sure that the child Velu adopted, Karan gets a proper education.
The DSP trains Velu and sends him back to Billa's gang as a person who has lost his memory. Slowly Velu starts to learn about Billa's Gang and even speaks to Jagdish on the phone. Velu provides a pen drive with the secret information of the crime network to the DSP, but he is about to be killed by Sasha. At this juncture, DSP arrive and tell her that he is Velu and not Billa. Later Velu secretly provides information to the DSP about a meeting of Billa's Network and C.J overhears his conversation. He accidentally kills C.J. A shootout occurs at the party and the DSP is secretly killed by Jagdish, leaving his gun behind. Velu finds the DSP's body and the gun, but is taken into the custody of the police team, now headed by Interpol Officer Gokulnath. He argues during interrogation that he is Velu and not Billa to Gokulnath. Velu mentions a piece of evidence - the pen drive which may prove his innocence but the pen drive is no where to be found.
Unable to prove is innocence, he escapes from a police van. He phones Gokulnath and ask him to meet at the Aero bridge. Here it is revealed that Gokulnath is none other than the Underworld Crime Don Jagdish and he is the one who killed Jayprakash. Officer Anil Menon apparently had the Pen drive all along and strikes a deal to get hold of Jagdish. Meanwhile Sasha has been kidnapped by Jagdish and Jagdish wants the pen drive in return for it. Velu meets Ranjith and gives him a second pen drive with the same data, but corrupted, but when Ranjith tries to kill Velu, a scuffle ensues making Ranjith fall from the top. In a final confrontation, Jagdish fights with Velu. Jagdish posing as Gokulnath asks the police to arrest Velu as Billa but gets shot by the squad of police and dies as the police have wired the entire conversation between Jagdish and Velu, thus proving his innocence. Velu finally hands over the original pen drive to Officer Menon.
Cast
- Ajith Kumar as David Billa and Saravana Velu. The Rediff review describes his performance as "electrifying as Billa" and "his performance is much better than the rest of the film".[citation needed]
- Prabhu Ganesan as DSP Jayaprakash.
- Nayanthara as Sasha. She is the sister of one of the men that billa killed, and seeks revenge.
- Namitha as C. J. She is a part of Billa's crew that is in love with Billa.
- Rahman as Jagdish aka Gokulnath.
Development
The entire production of the movie took about six months to be completed and released. Prior to Billa, Vishnuvardhan had directed three films, Kurumbu, Arinthum Ariyamalum and Pattiyal, two of which were successful. Billa, was started after a debacle surrounding his other venture, Sarvam, which was eventually postponed to make way for Billa.
The film was originally announced, provisionally after the release of the Bollywood film, Don - which was a remake of the yesteryear film with the same name from 1978. Also from the 1978 version of Don, a remake was made in 1980 into Tamil, called Billa. 2007's Billa drew inspirations from these three versions. Vishnuvardhan claims to have had Ajith Kumar on his mind to penact the lead role, .prior to him signing the project. Suresh Balaji, who had acted in the yesteryear version of Billa, acquired the rights to produce the film. The film became the second Tamil film to be remade from its yesteryear version after Naan Avanillai.
In an interview, Vishnuvardhan, mentioned that he had "twice missed out on the chance to direct him [Ajith Kumar]. The third time when I got a chance to direct him, I made sure that I would not miss it. I was all ready to write a good script for him but he said, he wanted me to re-make Billa" , confirming it was Ajith Kumar's idea. While Yuvan Shankar Raja was signed on as the music director, as per his previous films, while Pa. Vijay assisted him with the lyrics and Vishnuvardhan's wife, Anu, debuted as a costume designer.
Casting
After the official announcement of the production company, the director and the cameraman, Nirav Shah and Vishnuvardhan began to select other members of the cast and the crew to be a part of the Billai team, Ajith Kumar could not assist in helping choose the other members. For his crew, Vishnuvardhan picked his preferred technicians; with Sujatha as the dialogue writer, Nirav Shah as the cinematographer, Kanal Kannan as the stunt master, Thotta Tharani as the art director, Pa. Vijay as the chief lyricist and A. Sreekar Prasad as the editor. Vishnuvardhan's orthodox music composer, Yuvan Shankar Raja was chosen, creating great expectations for the project.
Prakash Raj was almost immediately selected to play a role in the film, after helping make Vishnuvardhan's last project, Pattiyal a success. The role of the comedian was tipped to go Vadivelu, after he received rave reviews for his comic chemistry in Chandramukhi with Rajinikanth, but however, despite the reviews, Vishnuvardhan's regular pattern meant that the spotlight for a comedian will be limited. Other reports claimed that popular Tamil actor, Srikanth to act as the father of the children Ajith raises in the film but soon the story was denied. The leading lady of the film's selection took longer than it was expected. Isha Sherwani, who had been in contention to act in the last few movies of Ajith Kumar, was finally expected to be selected as she had owed a favour in return to Vishnuvardhan. However she rejected the offer at the time citing a lack of dates and the clashing of her other films schedules. Another actress, Reema Sen, was also considered and approved by Vishnuvardhan, but was already committed to other Bollywood films. Soon, another actress, was approached for the film, Asin Thottumkal[9] but Vishnuvardhan decided to reject her as she had already paired with Ajith in his previous two films. Other famous actresses such as Shriya Saran;[10] who had acted in the hit Mazhai, Trisha Krishnan, Banu and Pooja were considered but then rejected for the role of the heroine. In early 2007, Vishnuvardhan and Ajith announced officially that Nayanthara had been selected to essay the role as Ajith's's love interest.
Nayanthara was relatively new to Tamil cinema when she was selected for the role. Despite acting in over a dozen films in the Telugu language opposite big names such as Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu, Venkatesh and Akkineni Nagarjuna, she had only acted in four Tamil language films which were Ayya, in which she played a young role,Chandramukhi opposite Rajinikanth, Vallavan opposite Simbu and Kalvanin Kadhali opposite S. J. Suryah. Surprisingly, several television artistes were given other roles in the film. Vishnuvardhan and his crew opted for Prakashraj, Prabhu, Santhanam, Mumaith Khan, Namitha as the second heroine.[21][22]
On April 13, 2007, the eve of Tamil New Year's Day, the launch of Billa took place at the AVM studios in Vadapalani, Chennai. Among the attendees were the stars of the old cast, Rajnikanth, Sripriya, Suresh Balaji as well as noted directors Mani Rathnam, Dharani, K. S. Ravikumar, and Saran. The confirmed cast uptil the date of the launch also were invited, among them being Ajith Kumar along with his wife, Shalini; Nayanthara, Namitha and Prabhu Ganesan.
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