Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu

The story unfolds in a remote village near Palani called Kanakkanpatti with a poor goat herd Marimuthu (Vishnu Vishal) as its protagonist who lost education as his father died when he was 13. He also plays kabbadi very well. Marimuthu, along with his childhood friends Ayyappan (Hari Vairavan), Sekar (Nitish Veera), Murthy (Maayi Sundar), Appukutty (Appukutty), Subramani (Soori), and Pandi (Ramesh Pandiyan), are kabbadi players who dream of winning a local tournament.

Sekar is a rich, short-tempered rice mill owner and is always captain of the team. Appukutty is a short tea shop owner who often gets a heavy scolding from his old mother-in-law. Subramani is a very newlywed man who has only three hobbies: eating thrice as normal man, kabbadi, and making love. Pandi is a big, fat local store owner who is a son of an ex-army man. Marimuthu, who lost his father when he was young, works in a farm and can stay in his house only during holidays. Their kabbadi team, Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu, is infamous for never winning a match in their history. In a subplot, Marimuthu meets and flirts with an unnamed beautiful young lady (Saranya Mohan) who comes visiting to his village's annual festival. They organize a friendly kabbadi match with the neighbouring village team for the festival, and Souda Muthu (Kishore), the coach of the state's best kabbadi team, is the chief guest in which an outbreak in the game occurs. Then they go to Madurai for a non-detail known match where Souda Muthu is one of the chief conductors and a coach. He tells it is a state-level pre-qualified tournament in which no local teams may participate. As they prepare to leave, they learn that suddenly their district team has forfeited, and hence they join unopposed as Dindigul district team.

Souda Muthu wants to give a rookie substitute of his team (the Paper Mills team, which has won the last two seasons) into playing seven, but the rest of the team rebel and expel Souda Muthu from coaching them. Then Souda Muthu separates from his state winning team and starts coaching Vennila. The team progresses through the tournament into the final despite the myriad hurdles and disadvantages, with the help of their coach who gives them very hard coaching.

In the semifinals, the opposite team tries to injure Marimuthu and win the game. They succeed in dislocating his collarbone, and Marimuthu is hospitalised. The rest of team ensures that they win by a very huge margin, including a brutal offence attack. Though the collarbone is relocated, Marimuthu must remain in the hospital for the night.

The finals between Vennila and Paper Mills causes high anticipations as one is the defending champion and other is an unknown rookie. The betting bookie fears that Vennila might win. Hence they poison Sekar's mind stating that Railways will choose one player from each finalists, and he must prevent Marimuthu from playing in finals to get the job for himself. Sekar attempts to do so minutes before the finals, but the coach and team turn on him, and he is expelled before the match. The whole of the village has come to watch their match, except Marimuthu's mother.

In the final, Vennila struggles initially but manages to fight back into contention in the second half. As the game ends in a tie, players from each team go up individually against each other as a tiebreaker. Both teams score equal points, and only one upon each side remain. Marimuthu is to be the defence, when the opposite raider (Vijay Sethupathi) has the last raid. The raider attempts to touch him by kicking lightly on his chest and come back, but Marimuthu comes forward and holds his leg, they both fall down, and the raider is prevented from touching the line within the time period. Hence Marimuthu wins the game for Vennilla, and they become the first rookie state champions.

The scene changes to several months later when the unnamed young lady returns to the village festival where she met Marimuthu the previous year. But he is to be found nowhere. It is revealed later that, Marimuthu died as his heart stopped due to sudden shock he received when the opposite player kicked in his chest and both fell down. However, his friends, despite noticing her search for him, decide not to reveal to her Marimuthu's demise to spare her the anguish. The movie ends ambiguously, with the unnamed lady leaving the village without knowing Marimuthu's fate.

According to director Suseenthiran, the film is based on real life incidents as his father was a kabbadi player. Suseenthiran got to know about the insults and pains the player went through, which he wanted to showcase in a film.[1] Also, he was said to be inspired from success of the 2001 Bollywood film Lagaan, which was based on cricket.[1]

The songs were penned by Na. Muthukumar, Francis Kriba, Snehan & Karthiknetha and composed by V. Selvaganesh.

Rediff wrote "With its superb ensemble cast and script, Vennila Kabaddi Kuzhu scores the match-point".[2] Sify wrote "The film has a tight script but does not break new ground, nor does it tell a dramatically different story. But what it does have is a very ?clean? screenplay with all the typical elements of a good sports film in place".[3]

The film was successful at the box office.[4]

• Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu at IMDb