Rajinimurugan

Rajini Murugan (Sivakarthikeyan) is an unemployed youth from Madurai who spends his days roaming around with his best friend Thotathree (Soori) and supplying food to his grandfather Ayyankalai (Rajkiran), a highly respected gentleman who has large properties of land. Ayyankalai wants to divide all his properties among his children and grandchildren, but except Rajini Murugan and his father Malligarajan (G. Gnanasambandam), who is the headmaster of the local school, the rest of the family is settled abroad and never visit Madurai.

Meanwhile, following the advice of an astrologer (who claimed that Rajini Murugan will get married and be rich within three months), Rajini Murugan starts wooing his childhood sweetheart Karthika Devi (Keerthy Suresh). Karthika's father Neelakandan (Achyuth Kumar), an ardent fan of Rajinikanth, was the best friend of Malligarajan and had given Rajini Murugan his name when he was born, but fell out with Malligarajan and his family due to a misunderstanding involving Rajini Murugan and Karthika when they were children. Since then, Rajini Murugan and Karthika are not on speaking terms, and Neelakandan forbids any sort of contact between the two. Nevertheless, Rajini Murugan opens a tea stall outside Karthika's house to stay close to her and follows her day and night. The stall is later destroyed by a customer who pulls down the shop in the process of taking a banana. Later, he and Thothathree start a real estate company. A gangster "Ezhrai" Mookan (Samuthirakani), whose only work is to extort ₹100,000 from businessmen, tries to swindle the same amount from Rajini Murugan, but fails and ends up paying ₹100,000 to him.

Ayyankalai, who is fed up with Rajini Murugan's antics, decides to immediately divide his properties so that Rajini Murugan can benefit from his share of the property. He fakes his death, which forces his children and grandchildren to come to Madurai. Mookan claims that he too is a grandson of Ayyankalai (through the son of Ayyankalai's first wife) and starts demanding his share of the property. This leads to confrontation between Rajini Murugan and Mookan and their feud is soon brought before the panchayat. The panchayat declares the verdict in favour of Ayyankalai and Rajini Murugan. Mookan, accepting defeat, receives ₹100,000 from Rajini Murugan as compensation. It is then revealed that Mookan staged the whole drama to get back his ₹100,000 from Rajini Murugan. Meanwhile, Karthika accepts Rajini Murugan's love and Neelakandan also begins to approve their relationship.

In the end, Ayyankalai reveals that he does have a grandson through his first wife's son. The grandson is revealed to be none other than Bosepandi(Sivakarthikeyan) from Varuthapadatha Valibar Sangam. Bosepandi refuses to accept his share of his grandfather's property, advising him and his family not to sell the property and instead convert it into a 5-star hotel and hand it over to Rajini Murugan. Ayyankalai and Rajini Murugan agree with him.

D. Imman composed the soundtrack and score for this film, collaborating with Sivakarthikeyan for the third time, and with Ponram for the second time. The audio rights were acquired by Sony Music. The first single titled "Yennamma Ippadi Panreengalema", was adapted from a popular phrase, used by Lakshmy Ramakrishnan in the TV Series Solvathellam Unmai, and later parodied by Ramar in the comedy show Adhu Idhu Yedhu.[14] The single track was released on 29 May 2015, at the Super Singer World Tour, held at Suntec City in Singapore.[15] The album was initially scheduled to release on 7 June 2015.[16] But the audio launch was pushed to 16 June, while the promotions for the album, kickstarted on 11 June.[17]

The official tracklist of the film was unveiled by Imman on 13 June 2015,[18] which features ten tracks, consisting of five songs, a remix, and a karaoke version, all of them were written by lyricist Yugabharathi.[19] The audio launch event was held at the Taj Coromandel hotel on 16 June 2015, with a live telecast being held on Thanthi TV,[20] and the event was hosted by Anjana Rangan,[21] with the presence of cast and crew.[22] The songs were released on the same day midnight.[23] After the film's release, three more songs were added as bonus tracks on 26 February 2016.

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Yugabharathi.

Reception

The Times of India, reviewed it as "An album that is sure to have more than one track feature as a chart topper."[24] Behindwoods rated the album 3 out of 5 stars, reviewing "Another mainstream treat from the VVS trio!"[25] Indiaglitz rated the album 3 out of 5 and summarised "Imman brings back the magic from VVS days, would be interesting to see the songs with the visuals if retains the treat."[26] Moviecrow rated the album 2.5 out of 5 stars, and reviewed that "Rajini Murugan soundtrack is average work from the composer given its much hype around the movie and it's far behind the enjoyable Ponram-Imman's previous work."[27]

Sify rated the album 3 out of 5, and chose "Un Mela Oru Kannu", "Aavi Parakkum", "Yennamma Ippadi Panreengalema", as their favourite picks, then stated "Rajini Murugan’ is an album where the emphasis has been given to funny lyrics and simplistic tunes. Tracks like Un Mela, Aavi Parakkum work for their uncomplicated approach while Ennama Ipdi Panreengale is going to be a mass favorite number."[28]

The first look poster of Rajinimurugan was released on 25 April 2015, at the 6th Vijay Awards.[29][30] The official teaser of the film was released on 16 June 2015, during the audio launch of the film. The teaser received positive response from the audience.[31] A few photocard designed posters, were unveiled on 21 August 2015, for the film's promotion.[32] The official trailer of the film, was released on 4 September 2015, at midnight 12:00 a.m. on the official YouTube channel of Sony Music South.[33] The second trailer of the film was released on 31 December 2015.[34]

Rajinimurugan faced significant delays, upon its release, due to the financial problems faced by the production house. Initially, the film slated to release on 17 July 2015, coinciding with the Ramzan weekend. However, the release was postponed to avoid clash with Dhanush-starrer Maari,[35] and was later scheduled to release on 17 September 2015, coinciding with Vinayagar Chathurthi.[36] However, the financial disputes between the producers and distributors,[37] led to postpone the release of the film on 1 October 2015, which was later delayed due to the release of Vijay-starrer Puli.[38] The plans to release the film on 21 October 2015, during the Dusshera festival was also failed. Finally, the makers announced that the film will release on 4 December 2015.[39] The makers went on with the film's promotion in November 2015, however, the release was pushed further, due to the 2015 South Indian Floods.[40][41] Later, the film was scheduled to release on 14 January 2016, coinciding with the Pongal weekend, and also clashing with other releases Gethu, Kathakali and Thaarai Thappattai.[42]

During the production of Kamal Hassan's Uttama Villain (2015), the producers suffered losses as the Suriya-starrer Anjaan (2014), which was produced and directed by Lingusamy, bombed at the box office. Hence, in order to overcome the losses, Lingusamy desperately sold both Uttama Villain and Rajinimurugan, to Eros International. Lingusamy, also borrowed money from local distributors, to release the former. But, the release of Uttama Villain was unexpectedly stalled, due to the disputes between financiers and producers,[43] which led to a loss of ₹12 crore (US$1.7 million), and also the film's poor performance, abetting the problem, the payment owed by Eros International, was ballooned to ₹20 crore (US$2.8 million), and insisted Lingusamy, to pay the remaining balance amount of ₹20 crore to Eros.[44] Since, Lingusamy doesn't have a huge amount to settle Eros, the film faced a delayed release, says the sources.

• Rajinimurugan at IMDb