Enthiran
Enthiran is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language science fiction action film co-written and directed by Shankar. It is the first instalment in the Enthiran film series. The film stars Rajinikanth in dual lead roles as a scientist and the robot he created.Along with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Actors like Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam and Karunas play supporting roles. The soundtrack album and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman while the dialogues, cinematography, editing and art direction were handled by Madhan Karky, R. Rathnavelu, Anthony and Sabu Cyril and action sequences was done by Peter Hein respectively. The story revolves around the struggle of a scientist named Vaseegaran to control his sophisticated android robot named Chitti, after Chitti's software is upgraded to give it the ability to comprehend and exhibit human emotions and to commission it to the Indian Army. The project backfires when Chitti falls in love with Vaseegaran's girlfriend Sana, and is manipulated by Vaseegaran's mentor Bohra into becoming homicidal.
After being stalled in the development phase for nearly a decade, the film's principal photography began in 2008 and lasted two years. The film marked the debut of Legacy Effects studio in Indian cinema. Enthiran was released worldwide on 1 October 2010. Produced by Kalanithi Maran, it was the most expensive Indian film at the time of its release.
The film received generally positive reviews upon release, with critics being particularly appreciative of Shankar's direction, storyline, Rajinikanth's performance as Chitti, music, action sequences, production values and the visual effects by V. Srinivas Mohan. Enthiran emerged as the highest-grossing Indian film of 2010. It won two National Film Awards, three Filmfare Awards, seven Vijay Awards and two Screen Awards. Enthiran was followed by a standalone sequel, 2.0, which released in late 2018.
Plot
The scientist K. Vaseegaran creates an android robot named Chitti with the help of his assistants, Siva and Ravi, to commission it into the Indian Army. Chitti helps Sana, Vaseegaran's medical student girlfriend, cheat on her examination, then saves her from a group of thugs in an electric train while returning. Vaseegaran's mentor, Bohra, is secretly contracted to create similar robots for a terrorist organisation but so far has been unsuccessful. Threatened with death if he fails to meet the deadline, Bohra seeks the details of Chitti's neural schema, intending to program his robots correctly.Vaseegaran prepares Chitti for an evaluation by the Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Institute, headed by Bohra. During the evaluation, Chitti nearly stabs Vaseegaran at Bohra's command, which convinces the evaluation committee that the robot is a liability and cannot be used for military purposes. Hoping to prove Bohra wrong, Vaseegaran deploys Chitti to save people from a burning building but fails when Chitti saves a girl bathing but flees being ashamed filmed naked on TV and is hit by a truck and dies. Vaseegaran requests Bohra for one month to modify Chitti's neural schema to enable it to understand human behaviour and emotions to which Bohra agrees. While nearing the deadline, Vaseegaran insults Chitti, who becomes angry with Vaseegaran, demonstrating to him that it can manifest emotions.
Chitti uses Sana's textbooks and an ancient delivery method to help Sana's sister, Latha's childbirth complication. Bohra congratulates Vaseegaran and belatedly lets Chitti pass the AIRD evaluation. Chitti develops romantic feelings for Sana after she congratulates Chitti by kissing it. Later, at Sana's birthday party, Chitti seduces her while dancing and is confronted by Vaseegaran and Sana, to whom it confesses its love towards her. Vaseegaran reprimands Chitti, while Sana explains that they can only be friends. Chitti is saddened by her rejection, until Bohra convinces it to fight for its love for Sana, at Vaseegaran's expense. Chitti purposely fails an evaluation by the Indian Army by talking off-topic. Enraged, Vaseegaran chops Chitti into pieces, which Siva and Ravi dump into a landfill site.
Bohra visits the site to retrieve Chitti, which has crudely reassembled itself. He reconstructs Chitti, in exchange for its neural schema, with the help of Siva and Ravi. Bohra embeds a red chip which converts it into a ruthless killer. Bohra tells Siva and Ravi that he is doing this to earn money through his business and defame Vaseegaran. Chitti gatecrashes Vaseegaran and Sana's wedding, kidnaps Sana, kills many police officers, and creates replicas of itself using Bohra's robots. Bohra tries to stop Chitti, who kills him. Using its robot army, Chitti occupies AIRD. After informing Sana that it has acquired the human ability to reproduce, Chitti wishes to marry her so that a machine and a human being can give birth to a preprogrammed child, but Sana refuses. It eventually finds Vaseegaran, who entered AIRD to stop it, and nearly kills him before the police appear. The ensuing battle between Chitti's robot army and the police personnel leads to many casualties. Vaseegaran eventually captures Chitti using a magnetic wall and accesses its internal control panel, whereby he instructs all the other robots to self-destruct, and removes Chitti's red chip, making him back to normal.
In a court hearing, Vaseegaran is sentenced to death for the casualties caused by the robot army, but Chitti explains that Bohra is the culprit and shows the court video footage of Bohra installing the red chip. The court drops all charges on Vaseegaran but orders Chitti to be dismantled. Left with no choice, Vaseegaran tells Chitti to dismantle itself. Chitti does so while apologising to Sana and Vaseegaran, and receives their forgiveness.
By 2030, Chitti has become a museum exhibit. A curious school student asks her guide why it was dismantled, to which Chitti responds that it started thinking.
Cast
R1 and R2, a pair of robots that work in Vaseegaran's lab, are played by Kunju Shankar and Iyyappan, respectively. Boys Rajan, uncredited, plays a professor.Production
Development
In 1996, following the release of Indian, S. Shankar approached and pitched three storylines to Rajinikanth to consider for his next venture. This included scripts which would later become Sivaji: The Boss, Enthiran and I. Rajinikanth was sceptical and refused all three scripts at the time. Following the completion of his first directorial venture in Hindi, Nayak, Shankar announced his next project, Robot, which was to feature Kamal Haasan and Preity Zinta. The film was to be produced by the now-defunct company Media Dreams, a division of Pentamedia Graphics. The film was reported to be a futuristic techno-thriller set in Chennai in around 2200 or 3000. Despite the completion of a photoshoot featuring Haasan and Zinta, the project was shelved as a result of scheduling conflicts with Haasan. Shankar consequently started work on Boys.After Boys, Shankar began work on his next feature starring Vikram, which was initially reported by Rediff.com to be Robot revived, but was later revealed as Anniyan. One month post the release of Sivaji: The Boss in June 2007, he approached Shah Rukh Khan for the lead in Robot. Shankar had cast Priyanka Chopra in the lead opposite him. Khan was about to produce it under his own banner, Red Chillies Entertainment, but in October the same year the project was officially aborted due to creative differences between him and Shankar.
The project was revived in January 2008 with Eros International and the London-based production company Ayngaran International willing to produce the film. The state government of Tamil Nadu granted tax exemptions for films titled in Tamil, resulting in the new production being renamed Enthiran. While Sujatha was originally assigned to write the dialogue for the film, Madhan Karky took over after Sujatha's death in February 2008. In December 2008, Eros International withdrew from funding the project after financial difficulties caused by the box-office failure of Drona and Yuvvraaj, with the subsequent departure of Ayngaran International, which struggled during the 2008 financial crisis. The film's production and release rights were sold to Sun Pictures.
Cast and crew
In January 2008, Rajinikanth accepted the lead role in the film for a salary of 450 million. Shankar rewrote the original script to suit Rajinikanth's acting style. Although Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was Shankar's original choice for the female lead in 2001, she declined it owing to a busy schedule and was replaced by Zinta. When Shankar revived the project with Rajinikanth, contenders for the part included Deepika Padukone, Shriya Saran and Rai, who was ultimately selected and paid 60 million. Rai's voice was dubbed by Savitha Reddy.Several actors were considered for the role of Professor Bohra, including Amitabh Bachchan, J. D. Chakravarthy, Sathyaraj and British actor Ben Kingsley, but it was Danny Denzongpa who eventually received it, making Enthiran his first film in Tamil. Dubbing for Denzongpa was provided by Kadhir. Comedians Santhanam and Karunas were cast to portray Vaseegaran's assistants Siva and Ravi respectively.
The soundtrack album and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman. Vairamuthu, Pa. Vijay and Madhan Karky authored the lyrics for the songs. Manoj Bharathiraja was signed on to be an assistant director after he approached Shankar and helped him find the location for Rajinikanth's house in the film. Arul and Manoj, uncredited, worked as body doubles for both the Vaseegaran and Chitti characters. Also working as assistant directors were Atlee, Shree and Karthik G. Krish. Sabu Cyril, in addition to being the film's art director, made a guest appearance as Shah, an interpreter between Bohra and the terrorist organisation.
R. Rathnavelu was hired as the cinematographer after Ravi K. Chandran, Nirav Shah and Tirru were considered. Anthony was the film's editor. Yuen Woo-ping, known for his work in The Matrix trilogy and the Kill Bill films, was selected to be the stunt co-ordinator, while Legacy Effects, a visual effects studio based in the United States, were in charge of the prosthetic make-up and animatronics in the film. Munich-based film technical company, Panther, were responsible for the crane shots. The film's subtitle captioning was done by Rekha Haricharan.