Arasatchi

Brammanadham (Anandaraj), a lawyer who argues for rapists and murderers, is killed by a cricket ball hit by Siddharth (Arjun). Siddharth is a GM of a five-star hotel owned by S. Ve. Shekher. Shekher's daughter is Lara (Lara Dutta), who is introduced with a song. She comes from abroad to join her father's hotel, but only as a trainee under the macho Siddharth. Within no time, Lara is in love with Siddharth.

It is now time for duets. Lara's friend Prakash (Karan) is a campaigner of public cause. His efforts lead to a brothel raid and a minister getting arrested. The minister's goons bump off Prakash, and Siddharth is an eyewitness. Siddharth refuses to testify, and Lara walks out on him. Janakiraman (Charan Raj) pleads for the killer and lets him off. Siddharth bumps off Janakiraman. Major Vishwanath (Nassar), a military officer, is a witness to the murder. He even postpones his heart operation until the killer is nabbed. Siddharth now tells his story of why he is on a hunt of the lawyers who plead for the bad guys. Vishwanath gives up his mission.

Next, Karunakaran (Devan) takes a brief for a rapist, and he too is killed. Next is the turn of advocate Ashok Mehta (Raghuvaran), who comes from Delhi. The surprise element is that Ashok is Siddharth's brother-in-law; Ashok's wife is Siddharth's long-lost sister. Now, the brother-sister sentiment comes into play.

Finally, the story ends with Ashok being shot dead by Siddharth in the court premises. The police opens fire, and bystanders form a human wall and get shot at. Siddharth tells the TV crew about how his mission has spread to the masses.

After the success of Vallarasu Maharajan was supposed to direct Vijaykanth in another project but later got dropped and Maharajan went on to remake Vallarasu in Hindi as Indian with Sunny Deol.[4] Meanwhile, Maharajan announced his next project Arasatchi with Arjun playing the lead role. Miss Universe 2000 Lara Dutta made her acting debut in Tamil with this film.[5] The film boasts of 14 villains played by Raghuvaran, Karan, Anandaraj, Nassar, M. N. Nambiar, Ponnambalam, Delhi Ganesh, Mansoor Ali Khan, Devan, Rajan P. Dev, and Manivannan among others. Uma, Abitha, Vindhya and P. Vasu play crucial roles in the film.

The filming was held at Le Royal Meridian Hotel, Chennai and the songs were picturised at locations in London, New Zealand and Canada.[6]

During the making of the film, music composer Harris Jayaraj fell out with the director.[7] The movie was completed in 2003 but got delayed due to financial problems and finally released in 2004,[8] in between production delays Maharajan finished Anjaneya with Ajith.

The satellite rights of the film were secured by Raj TV. The film was given an "A" certificate by the Indian Censor Board. Before release, poster featuring tagline "When Justice Fails" created controversy which caused a lawyer to file a case citing that the film would portray lawyers in bad light. After one week, case was finally won.[9][10]

The soundtrack and background score was composed by Harris Jayaraj