Ghajini (
Tamil: கஜினி) is a
Tamil film released on
September 29,
2005. The film stars
Surya Sivakumar,
Asin Thottumkal,
Nayantara,
Pradeep Rawat and
Riyaz Khan. The film is directed by
A.R. Murugadoss. This film is based on
Christopher Nolan's
Academy Award nominated film
Memento. It is also being remade into
Hindi starring
Aamir Khan and
Asin Thottumkal playing the same role.
Cast and Crew
Plot
The story is about Sanjay Ramaswamy (Surya), a rich businessman and the events surrounding his relationship with Kalpana (Asin).
Kalpana, an advertisement model goes around telling her advertisement crew that she is the love interest of Sanjay. She does this in spite of she having never met him and also goes to the extent of giving an interview about her relationship to a popular magazine. Sanjay happens to hear about this through the media and wants to settle scores with her. On his way, he catches a fleeting glimpse of a young woman (who happens to be Kalpana) helping handicapped children to cross a street. It is love at first sight for Sanjay. He moves on to confront Kalpana at her advertisement studio. He is pleasantly surprised to realize that she is the same helpful woman he saw a while ago. He chooses to hide the fact from her that he is Sanjay. Kalpana eventually falls in love with him.
Once, while on a train to Mumbai, Kalpana saves a group of young girls from abuse by a group of goons. After a few days, the same goons come to Kalpana's house in order to avenge their embarrassment. Incidentally, Sanjay arrives at the scene and fights off the goons, but during the ensuing fight, Kalpana is murdered. The irony showcased is that Kalpana never finds out that he is Sanjay. The dacoits strike the downcast Sanjay on his head severely with a metal rod. Sanjay survives the blow, but suffers from a short-term amnesia. At any given time, he does not remember anything that happened more than 15 minutes back. He determines to take revenge on those responsible for Kalpana's death. The rest of the story is about how Sanjay goes about finding the goons despite his memory loss.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack features 5 songs composed by Harris Jayaraj, with lyrics by Na Muthukumar.
- Oru Maalai (5:54) - Karthik
- X Machi (4:12) - Maathanhi, & Naahul
- Sutrum Vizhi (5:18) - Sriram Parthasarathy & Bombay Jayashree
- Rahathulla (4:50) - Anupamma
- Rangola Ola (4:26) - Shankar Mahadevan & Sujatha
Awards
The title is said to be inspired by an invader of India named Mahmud Ghazni who failed many times until he succeeded, much like the protagonist of the movie fails many times and then succeeds in achieving his goals. Finally, on the 18th time, he was successful.
Box Office
The movie had a 100% opening. It managed to sustain the tremendous opening, and went on to be Surya's biggest hit at the time.[dubious – discuss] It collected enough revenue to make it one of the three highest grossing Tamil-language films of 2005 followed by Anniyan.
The Hindi version of Ghajini with pre-release movie rights becoming hot property Ghajini has earned an estimated Rs 90 crore by selling its distribution rights. Last year, Om Shanti Om was the top grosser in distribution rights, it sold the rights to Eros for a reported Rs 73 crore.
Trivia
- To play the lead role of this film A. R. Murugadoss approached two other heroes; Ajith Kumar, Madhavan, but both rejected of date problems. Ajith accepted the role and also photo session took place but subsequently dropped out. Then the role finally went to Surya who grabbed it and it turned out to be the biggest commercial successes in his career.
The concept is based on an English movie Memento which is directed by Christopher Nolan, adapted from his brother Jonathan's short story "Memento Mori." It stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a former insurance fraud investigator searching for the man he believes raped and killed his wife during a burglary. Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia, which he contracted from severe head trauma during the attack on his wife.
