Sandakozhi

Balu (Vishal) visits his friend Karthik's (Raja) home in Chidambaram after completion of engineering. He meets Hema (Meera Jasmine), Karthik's sister, and they develop an affection which transforms into love. Kasi (Lal) is the local gangster in Chidambaram who is feared by the entire town. Balu, on his way back to his place, sees Kasi chasing a man with a sickle. When Kasi was about to kill the man he was chasing, Balu interferes and stops Kasi. An angered Kasi immediately tries to attack Balu, and to save himself, Balu retaliates by hitting Kasi. Only then, Balu comes to know that the person he hit is Kasi. To everyone's surprise, Balu smashes Kasi in front of everyone and leaves.

Kasi is furious and wants to take revenge on Balu. Kasi's men trap Karthik's father and get to know about Balu's native place. Kasi sets goons to kill Balu but gets shocked when he knows that Balu's father is Durai (Rajkiran), a powerful man in Madurai, and it will be very difficult to attack them. Kasi leaves to Madurai and waits for the right moment to kill Balu and his family. Meanwhile, Balu meets Hema and her family at a temple. Hema's father initially gets angry seeing Balu as he was responsible to bring trouble by hitting Kasi, but later, Balu convinces him. Both the families decide to get Balu and Hema married to each other.

One day, Kasi tries to kill Balu but instead attacks Durai. Durai understands that Balu is being targeted and decides to protect him. A localite in Madurai (Thalaivasal Vijay) hates Durai and his family and decides to help Kasi so Durai can get killed. Kasi decides to bring in violence during a temple festival day and utilize that opportunity to kill Balu and Durai. But Balu saves Durai and fights Kasi. In the end, Balu hits Kasi and leaves, challenging him to return if he still has guts to take revenge.

The story was originally narrated for Vijay with Jyothika as heroine, but both were replaced by Vishal & Meera Jasmine later.[2] Vishal says that he worked hard for the role by taking courses in acting and dancing.[3]

A fight scene involving hero Vishal and Lal was picturised in Dindigul for seven days. The songs have been shot at locations in Australia, New Zealand and Chennai. An introduction song for Rajkiran was shot at Theni.[4]

The soundtrack, composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, teaming up for the first time with director N. Linguswamy and Vishal, was released on 25 November 2005. It features 5 tracks, the lyrics of which were written by Pa. Vijay, Na. Muthukumar, Yugabharathi and Thamarai. Both the film score as well as the songs were appreciated and praised as outstanding with the song "Dhavanipotta Deepavali" considered as the pick of the album.[5][6]

Chennai Online wrote "'Sandakozhi' is an engaging entertainer, an action-flick with a difference".[7] Sify wrote "It is well-packaged film without any big stars or unwanted sentiments. Technically, the film is slick with good music by Yuvan and outstanding camerawork by Jeeva and Nirav Shah".[8]

The film was a commercial success grossing $3.5 million at the box office.[9]

In 2015, Linguswamy announced that he would direct the sequel of Sandakozhi with Vishal again, which was shelved. However the project was revived in 2017 with Vishal confirming his presence in the sequel.[10] Rajkiran from the original has been retained in the sequel with additional new cast involving Keerthi Suresh and Varalaxmi.[11] The film was released in 2018 failed to replicate the success of its original film.

• Sandakozhi at IMDb