Bigil
Bigil is a 2019 Indian Tamil-language sports action drama film directed and co-written by Atlee and produced by AGS Entertainment. The film stars Vijay in the main dual lead role as father and son, alongside an ensemble cast of Nayanthara, Jackie Shroff, Vivek, Kathir, Daniel Balaji, Anandaraj, Yogi Babu, I. M. Vijayan, Arjan Bajwa, Indhuja Ravichandran, Reba Monica John, Amritha Aiyer, and Varsha Bollamma. It is the third collaboration of Vijay with Atlee after Theri and Mersal. The film follows Michael "Bigil" Rayappan, a former footballer give up his dream and turned into a gangster after his father's death but ends up as coach of a women's football team after his friend is injured.
The film was officially announced in November 2018 under the tentative title Thalapathy 63, as it is Vijay's 63rd film and the official title was announced in June 2019. It is an unofficial remake of 2007 Shah Rukh Khan Film Chak De! India. Principal photography commenced in January 2019. It was predominantly shot in Chennai, with a minor schedule in Delhi, and wrapped by mid-August. The film has music composed by A. R. Rahman, cinematography handled by G. K. Vishnu and editing by Ruben.
Bigil was released on 25 October 2019, coinciding with the occasion of Diwali, and received mixed to fairly positive reviews from critics. The film emerged as the highest-grossing Tamil film of 2019 and the second highest grossing South Indian film of 2019 after Saaho, collecting around crore upon its release. It further became one of the highest-grossing Tamil films and the highest-grossing film of Vijay's career at that time until it was surpassed by Varisu and Leo. The film completed its 100-day theatrical run on 1 February 2020, and also won two awards each at the Zee Cine Awards Tamil, Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, three Edison Awards and a SIIMA Award.
Plot
Michael is a goon from Royapuram, Chennai who works to help his slum. He has a comical relationship with his girlfriend Angel Aasirvatham and a running feud with Daniel, a rival gangster. One night, Daniel attacks Michael and his close friend Kathir, who is the coach of the Tamil Nadu women's football team. Kathir is injured during the attack and becomes paralysed for a year. The team blame Michael for his condition and ousted him. To allow the team to take part in the upcoming national championship in Delhi, Kathir requests the Tamil Nadu Football Association to replace himself with his former teammate Bigil, who is actually Michael.Seven years earlier, Michael is an aspiring footballer who, along with Kathir, plays an important role in the Tamil Nadu football team's success. His father, Rayappan, is a crime boss who has a feud with Daniel's father, Alex. Rayappan encourages Michael's passion for football, as he does not want him to end up in a life of crime. When Michael is unable to play for the Indian national team due to Rayappan's criminal record, Rayappan personally took up the matter with AIFF president J.K. Sharma and forcefully ensured him to include Michael and Kathir in the team's preliminary squad. However, Michael's career gets cut short just when he is about to leave for Delhi to attend the national team trials as Rayappan was stabbed to death by Alex and Daniel. Michael kills Alex in front of Daniel and stays in Chennai to become the new leader of Rayappan's gang. Michael's absence caused the team lose in the trials who sent them back home. Kathir met Michael who request him to organise a women's football team and they worked together by selecting the women who were struggling and poor while give everything to them.
Back to present, Michael confronts Daniel and attempts to kill him for the earlier attack, but the police intervene to arrest Daniel and imprison him. Michael later accepts Kathir's request to coach the Tamil Nadu women's team and he returned to footballing before leaves for Delhi with Angel and the team. However, due to his criminal background, the women refuse to cooperate with him and even blame him for the team's opening loss to Manipur in the national championship. Dejected, Michael reaches out to Sharma to resign, but soon discovers that Sharma is targeting him in revenge for the humiliation that he had faced at the hands of Rayappan to allow him into the national team and was the one who sent armed assailants to attack Michael before the match.
However, Michael convinces the women to support him and trains them vigorously to win the championship. He even manages to bring back two former key players to boost the team's strength: Gayathri, a Brahmin girl who quit football after marrying into a conservative family, and Anitha, who is in depression and refuses to even leave her room ever since a man threw acid on her when she spurned his advances. Angel motivates a pregnant Gayathri to continue playing football. Despite Sharma trying to rig Tamil Nadu's next match against Haryana to eliminate them, they won the match and all of the matches after that, eventually reaching the final, a rematch with Manipur in Chennai.
On the eve of the final, Vembu is kidnapped and forcefully injected with cocaine by Daniel, who is bailed out of prison and hired by Sharma to sabotage Tamil Nadu's chances of winning the championship. Though she recovered, she was unable to play in the final as she failed the dope test. The team's captain, Thendral, is also kidnapped by Daniel, who attempts to forcefully inject cocaine into her as well; Michael also gets kidnapped by Daniel and is injected with cocaine. Michael manages to beat Daniel's men, chases Daniel to his house, and proceeds to kill him, but when he sees Daniel's young son, he changes his mind and spares Daniel, as he realises he does not want the young boy's future to become like him by killing Daniel.
The next day, Tamil Nadu plays Manipur in the final. The match turned out to be a thriller, with Tamil Nadu winning the championship through a penalty shoot-out. Michael and the team dedicate their success to Kathir, who was watching the match from the dugout in a wheelchair. Michael later exposed Sharma for drug possession, leading to his arrest and subsequent execution when he was on holiday in Malaysia. A few months later, Michael quits rowdyism and takes up football coaching for children, with one of his students being Daniel's son, who has now made peace with Michael.
Cast
Cameo appearances
- Arjan Bajwa as Samar, Coach of Manipur Women's Football Team and rival of Michael
- Poovaiyar as himself in the song "Verithanam"
- A. R. Rahman as himself in the song "Singappenney"
- Atlee as himself in the song "Singappenney"
Production
Development
During the production of Sarkar, it was reported that directors H. Vinoth, Hari, Mohan Raja and Perarasu will be roped in to helm Vijay's 63rd film, tentatively being titled Thalapathy 63. However, in August 2018, Atlee confirmed that he will direct Thalapathy 63, thereby marking his third collaboration with the actor after Theri and Mersal. Speaking about this, in an interview with a radio channel, he stated that "the film would be bigger and better than the films of their previous associations", and also confirmed that he started working on the scripting process of the film. Archana Kalpathi, the creative producer of AGS Entertainment, had announced that they had acquired the rights for the production, marking the studio's first film with the actor.The film was officially announced on 14 November 2018, with a puja ceremony being conducted to commence the launch. A. R. Rahman was reported to compose the music and original score for the film, collaborating with Vijay for the fifth time after Udhaya, Azhagiya Tamil Magan, Mersal and Sarkar, and with Atlee for the second time after Mersal. The technical crew consisted of cinematographer G. K. Vishnu, editor Ruben, art director T. Muthuraj, stunt director Anal Arasu, all of them were associated in Mersal, while Atlee's regular collaborator, S. Ramana Girivasan, wrote the dialogues for the film. The film was reported to be a sports action film with commercial elements.
By late-November 2018, art director Muthuraj began working on the construction of the sets at Binny Mills in Chennai. By early-December 2018, Atlee, Vishnu and Kalpathi went to Los Angeles for location scouting to shoot a significant portion of the film. Ajay Devgn's NY VFXWAALA was hired to supervise the visual effects. Vijay was reported to play the role of a sportsperson-turned-coach and for his role, he was trained under fitness expert Kannan Narayanan to gain few kilos for the role. He further undergone special training in football, under the guidance of popular sports coordinator, Aimee McDaniel, known for her work in films like Million Dollar Arm, Pelé: Birth of a Legend and the web television series 13 Reasons Why. Additional sports choreography were done by former English footballer Justin Skinner. Coaching and physiotherapy were done by Nivetha and Kanaga Lakshmi, respectively. It was made on a budget of, thereby being the production house's most expensive film up to that point.
Casting
As the film is based on women's football, the team had finalised 16 women actors for the role. The team approached Kiara Advani to play the female lead, who denied the offer. Shortly after the film's launch, in November 2018, it was reported that Rashmika Mandanna will be a part of the film. However, Nayanthara was selected to play the female lead role, while Vivek and Anandaraj joined the film as a supporting role. The actors collaborate with Vijay, for a decade long-gap, with Vivek's last collaboration with Vijay was Kuruvi, whereas for Nayanthara and Anandaraj, was Villu. Yogi Babu was selected to play a comic role in the film. In mid-January 2019, Kathir was signed for a pivotal role, while Daniel Balaji attended the film's launch, thereby confirming his presence in the film. His character was reported to have negative shades. Rajkumar was chosen as a part of the film's cast, but it was proved to be untrue.In February 2019, Poovaiyar, a contestant of the reality show Super Singer Junior, aired on Star Vijay, was cast in a brief role for this film. By March 2019, Soundararaja was reported to appear in a pivotal role and had allotted 30-days of call sheet for the film. Rumours being speculated that former politician-turned-actor Nanjil Sampath will play the antagonist, after his acting debut with LKG. However, he was not approached by the team. On 21 March 2019, Jackie Shroff was hired to play a negative role in the film, whose character is reported to be a president of the All India Football Federation. The same month, Reba Monica John was signed in for the project. She shared her still from the film, whose role was revealed to be an acid attack survivor-cum-footballer.
By April, veteran actor-orator G. Gnanasambandam was roped in to play Nayanthara's father, and Indhuja Ravichandran was also signed for the project. Later, Varsha Bollamma and Indraja Shankar, daughter of comic actor Robo Shankar, were chosen to play female footballers. Amritha Aiyer was chosen to play the captain of the women's team, while Karnataka-based footballer Riddhi Ramesh and Gayathri Reddy made their debut in the film, by playing one of the few footballers. Kerala-based ex-footballer and actor I. M. Vijayan played one of the antagonists in the film. During the production of the film, Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was rumoured for playing a cameo appearance. However, sources close to the actor denied such claims.