Kaadhal Kondein

In 1995, near the forest of Hosur, a gang runs a brick factory which employs only children as labour. The gang's leader is a ruthless money-lending lady who buys orphans for work. They boys and girls are enslaved under highly inhuman conditions and work for 16 hours a day. Vinod, a 13-year-old-boy, is sold by his uncle and aunt for money after his parents died in an accident. He befriends three boys and one girl of the same age. One day, Vinod commits a minor error and is sent to solitary confinement in the form of a metal box under the sun. The husband of the leader sexually harasses Vinod's female friend to release Vinod, and the girl dies. The murder is silenced. Weeks later, the boys, lead by Vinod, rebel and kill the entire gang. The government takes over the plant, and all children are admitted into a orphanage.

In 2003, Vinod (Dhanush) has grown up under the care of a church father Rozario (Nagesh), and is an introvert but a genius. He secures great marks in his +2 exams and gets free admission into one of the top engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu. He is forcibly sent to Chennai to college by Rozario but is a complete misfit in class. Though shunned by the rest of his class, Divya (Sonia Agarwal) becomes his friend, and he gradually warms up to her. Vinod excels in his studies, and everyone begins to see him differently. His feelings to Divya soon turn into love, but he realizes that Divya considers him as only a friend and learns that she is in love with another classmate, Aadhi (Sudeep).

Divya's father is enraged on knowing about her love. He locks her up and prevents her from contacting anyone. Vinod comes and requests to meet her on the pretext of getting some old clothes for himself to wear. Pitying Vinod, her father allows him to meet Divya. Vinod escapes with Divya and convinces her that she will meet Aadhi in Ooty. Vinod has set up a secret place in Ooty for executing his plan of wooing Divya. He makes her stay with him, while convincing her by talking about Aadhi's arrival. On one such day, he reveals his miserable past, when he was made to work for paid labour after being orphaned at an early age. He revolts against the oppression one day. Promptly, he is beaten black and blue for his bravery. Moreover, he also loses his girlfriend to rapists in that place, who also kill her. After some days he kills the woman running the orphanage and also kills the rapist, helped by other children. They manage to break the place, escape from there, and seek refuge in the place of Rozario.

Divya is touched by his past. Incidentally, the police and Aadhi arrive at the place. While Vinod was away to get some food, they try to explain to Divya that Vinod is a psychopath. Divya scoffs at their claims, citing his gentlemanly behaviour over the days that she has been alone with him. Vinod, learning that the police have arrived at the scene, begins to indulge in violence. He opens fire, killing a police constable. Forcing them out of their hideout, he manages to evade the police inspector and Aadhi and successfully brings Divya back to their original place of stay. Divya soon identifies the tiger in the cow's skin. Vinod pleads with her, telling Divya that all he wanted in his life was her presence, but she called him a friend and stated her inability to accept him as her partner for life.

Meanwhile, Aadhi regains consciousness and comes back to attack Vinod and rescue his girlfriend. A violent fight follows, where Vinod treats Aadhi with disdain. The fight culminates with Vinod, Aadhi, and Divya teetering at the edge of a slippery cliff. While Divya clutches a tree bark tightly, Vinod and Aadhi slip out and barely manage to hold either of her hands. Divya is forced to choose between her boyfriend and friend. Aadhi's pleas notwithstanding, Divya does not have the heart to kill Vinod, who smiles at Divya and he himself leaves hand falling to his death in the rain. Divya and Adhi cry on his death.

• Dhanush as Vinod
• Sonia Agarwal as Divya
• Sudeep Sarangi as Aadhi Kesavan
• Nagesh as Father Rozario[1]
• Daniel Balaji as Police Inspector
• Srikanth as Divya's father
• Hemalatha as Vinod's childhood friend
• Rambo Rajkumar
• Gowthami Vembunathan as Orphanage Caretaker

Following the success of the previous film Thulluvadho Ilamai (2002), the team chose to collaborate again with the psychotic romantic thriller Kaadhal Kondein, credited as Selvaraghavan's first film. The venture, produced by his home production, also marked the first collaboration of Selvaraghavan with cinematographer Arvind Krishna, whom he would later associate with newcomer Sonia Agarwal. Selvaraghavan had written the script for the film in the late 1990s and had first narrated the story to Dhanush in their shared bedroom at home, before asking him to play the lead role of Vinod.[2]

Kaadhal Kondein
Soundtrack album by Yuvan Shankar Raja
Released	20 March 2003
Recorded	2002 / 2003
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	34:34 30:18 (OST release)
Label	Five Star Audio
Producer	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Yuvan Shankar Raja chronology
Pudhiya Geethai (2003) Kaadhal Kondein (2003) Winner (2003)

For Kaadhal Kondein, director Selvaraghavan and music composer Yuvan Shankar Raja came together again after their earlier successful collaboration in Thulluvadho Ilamai (2002), for which Selvaraghavan worked as a writer. The soundtrack of Kaadhal Kondein released on 20 March 2003, featuring seven tracks with lyrics written by Pazhani Bharathi and Na. Muthukumar. The music, especially the film score, received universal critical acclaim, establishing composer Yuvan Shankar Raja as one of the "most sought after music directors" in the Tamil film industry.[3]

More than one year after the release of the film, an "original soundtrack" was released, that followed the Hollywood-style. It was said to be the first time, that an original soundtrack was released for a film in India as the soundtracks released in India do not contain any film score pieces but full songs that feature in the film itself.[3] The OST of Kaadhal Kondein contains 20 tracks overall, which includes the seven earlier released tracks, four "montage" bit songs, that featured in the film, but not in the soundtrack, and nine pieces from the actual film score, which were titled as "Theme Music".

All music is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja.

The film opened in July 2003 to critical acclaim and commercial success.[4] A reviewer from The Hindu noted, "his story, screenplay, dialogue and direction are focussed and hit the bull's eye straightway — hardly missing the mark."[5]

• 2004: Filmfare Best Actor Award Nominated - Dhanush
• 2004: Filmfare Best Female Debut (South) - Sonia Agarwal

Nominations

• 2004: Filmfare Best Director Award - Selvaraghavan

Since its release, the film has been remade into several Indian languages; Boney Kapoor bought the rights to remake the film in Hindi, but the project did not materialise.[6] The film was later remade in Telugu as Nenu (2004),[7] in Kannada as Ravana (2009),[8] in Indian Bengali as Amanush (2010),[9] and in Bangladeshi Bengali as Onno Manush (2004).[10]

The film provided career breakthroughs for both Selvaraghavan and Dhanush in the Tamil film industry.[11][12] The success of the song "Devathaiyai Kandaen" prompted Boopathy Pandian to name his 2005 film starring Dhanush after the song title.

• Kadhal Konden at IMDb