Billa (2007 film)

Billa
File:Billa.jpg
Directed by	Vishnuvardhan
Written by	Salim Khan Javed Akhtar
Produced by	L.Suresh
Starring	Ajith Kumar Nayanthara Pooja Umashankar Prakashraj Santhanam
Music by	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Distributed by	Balaji Movies
Release date	2007
Language	Tamil

Billa is a forthcoming high budget Tamil film directed by Vishnuvardhan. The film is produced by L.Suresh, son of Balaji. His father produced the film, Billa which this is a remake of the Rajinikanth starrer Billa which was a remake of the Hindi film, Don. Ajith Kumar and Nayanthara are the only confirmed cast as yet. Shriya Saran, Reema Sen, Bhanu, Pooja Umashankar and Trisha Krishnan are being considered for other roles in the film. Yuvan Shankar Raja is set to compose the music for this film and a couple of old numbers are going to be remixed. The film is set for release in late 2007. Shooting will start after Ajith Kumar's next project, Kireedom is completed.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler In 2007, the drug trade is booming. The Malaysian Intelligence and Anti-Narcotic Department are called upon for assistance by their Indian counterparts. There are rumours that a drug gang has recently moved their headquarters to Kuala Lumpur.

The Indian team is headed by the DCP (Prakashraj) who wants to break the back of the drug operations of a drug lord. He believes that capturing the drug Lord's dangerous and elusive lieutenant, Billa, (Ajith Kumar), will be the most effective way of accomplishing this. Billa's gang consist of Narang (Santhanam) and Anita (Pooja Umashankar). Soon, Roma (Nayanthara) joins them but she has other plans - kill Billa. Billa was responsible for killing her brother Ramesh as well as his fiancee, Kamini.

During a chase with the police the real Billa is critically injured and is captured by the DSP. He keeps it a secret that he has captured Billa, even from his fellow officers, and tracks down a look-alike called Jeeva, a lowly singer (also played by Ajith Kumar). He asks Jeeva to infiltrate Billa's gang by pretending to be Billa. In return he will make sure that the child Jeeva found and adopted, Deepu gets a proper education. Meanwhile Jasjit who has just been released from prison sets out in search for his son, Deepu, and to get his revenge on the DSP who arrested him and prevented him from rescuing his wife and child from black mailers, this in turn killed his wife and left his son missing.

The DSP trains Jeeva and admits him in a hospital (in which Billa is also admitted and supposedly in coma) to surgically give him all the scars and birthmarks the real Billa has on his body. However Billa dies of heart failure suddenly in front of the DSP and the doctors, who are unable to save him. While Jeeva is infiltrating Billa's gang, the DSP is captured and killed in a fire blast; and Jeeva is forced to run from the police as well as Billa's gang members -- pursuing the last piece of evidence (a disc) which has all of Billa's criminal activities loaded on it, a disc which can get him out of this mess.

Through various plot twists, Jeeva recovers the disc. Eventually, it surfaces that the DSP is alive and is actually Vardhan, a notorious underground criminal with a grudge against the Drug Lord, Billa's boss, and eventually ends up killing him. Jeeva arranges a meeting with Vardhan and assists in his capture.

In a final twist, it emerges that the real Billa is still alive, and was pretending to be Jeeva who he killed and replaced while in the hospital. It was actually Jeeva who had died in the hospital of heart failure in front of Vardhan. In the end both Billa and his girlfriend Anita (Pooja Umashankar) escape, bewildering the police and Roma.

Cast

For Billa the original cast was to consisted of Rajini in 1980. Now Ajith Kumar is set to start in the remake of same film. Nayanthara and Pooja Umashankar are all set to paly the lead ladies in Billa such as Praveena and Sripriya did in the previous version. The film is well supported by the rest of the cast. Director Vishnuvardhan along with producers selected the appropriate cast for the film.

Actor	Role	Character
Ajith Kumar	Billa	The powerful drug dealer in Malaysia. He works for the Drug Lord, he is thought of as dead b ut really diguises as Jeeva and makes a miraculous escape at the climax.
Ajith Kumar	Jeeva	A road side dancer, who seems to look exactly like Billa, he dies becasue of a heart attack but others mistake it was Billa that had perished.
Nayanthara	Roma	A girl in need of revenge, she wants to kill Billa for the fact that Bill killed he brother. She acts as if she is one of the gang.
Pooja Umashankar	Anita	The girlfriend of Billa who is also involved in the drug distributing.
Prakashraj	DSP	The DSP who seems to want to get rid of Billa, but really is a enemy of the Drug Lord, Billa's boss. He trains up Billa later on, thinking it was Jeeva.
Santhanam	Narang	A friend of Billa, who helps with the happenings in the drug industry.

Crew

The crew for the film is another key element, the film was able to unite Ajith with Vishnuvardhan and Yuvan Shankar Raja. All three of them were looking to press on with their careers with the film. The production house and distributors are also able to make this happen in Kollywood.

Profession	Name	Effect
Actor	Ajith Kumar
Actress	Nayanthara
Actress	Pooja Umashankar
Actress
Director	Vishnuvardhan
Screenplay	Vishnuvardhan
Story	Salim Khan, Javed Akhtar
Dialogue	Vishnuvardhan
Script	Vishnuvardhan
Producer	L.Suresh
Music	Yuvan Shankar Raja
Choreography	Raju Sundaram
Editor	A. Sreekar Prasad
Director of Photography	Nirav Shah

Soundtrack

The film has songs composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, two of which have been re-mixed from the original film, which had M. S. Viswanathan as the music composer:

Song	Singer(s)	Review
My Name is Billa		The previous version was sung by S. P. Balasubramaniam.
Vethialaya Pottendy		The previous version was sung by Malaysia Vasudevan.

Production

Untitled

The film was launched initially with Ajith Kumar paired opposite Isha Sherwani, however she opted out of the project due to fully booked dates for her Hindi film, Dhee. After Isha's removal from the project other leading actresses such as Reema Sen and Nayanthara were approached for a key role in the film, they were still unclear of their confirmation into acting in the film.

Isha Sherwani was then roped in for a significant role in the film but however, 14 days after her confirmal she pulled out of the project citing differences with the director, Vishnuvardhan. The role offered to Isha Sherwani, was the role of a revenge seeking girl for the death of her brother, the role had a few songs and was the first heroine role. Reema Sen was overshadowed by other heroines in Kollywood as she was new to the industry. Isha Sherwani confirmed later to Kumudham magazine that she did not want to play second lead in the film, and opted out of the project. On February 19, 2007, the producers confirmed they had roped in Nayanthara to essay the role dropped by Isha Sherwani. Nayanthara will make her comeback in the Tamil film industry with the film. Nayanthara is being paid 90 Indian rupee lakhs for the project. Another heroine will join the sets once the shooting in the foreign locations have been completed, most likely by April, 2007. On February 23, Galatta.com came out with the news that Pooja Umashankar is set to be the second heroine opposite Ajith Kumar. However other reports claim that the role rumoured to be done by Pooja Umashankar is not confirmed. .

Also previously, the film was set to be based in Malayasia, with scenes taken in Kuala Lampur, so far there has been no visa problems for most of the background staff. So shooting is set to go ahead after Ajith Kumar completes the shooting of Kireedam, the film is set to relase by Diwali 2007.

Publicity and Release

The publicity of the fiim was initially created when Vishnuvardhan picked Ajith to star in the movie and hence named the movie Billa. Permission and allowance was asked from the producers of the yesteryear film Billa starring Rajinikanth in the lead role. Later there was confirmation that Rajinikanth had personaaly told Ajith to attempt the challenge of remaking Billa. The trend in Kollywood in recent times is to remake yesteryear hits and this has been backed by Vishnuvardhan who confirmed that this will definitely be a modern day interpretation of the old Billa starring Rajinikanth, Sripriya and Praveena.

When the cast showed Nayanthara opposite Ajith, for Nayanthara fans it marked her return to fame in Kollywood. She had previously been involved in an affair with Simbu and when they parted ways, indecent photographs of them was produced which dented Nayanthara's image. But nonetheless she is a heroine very high up the pecking order in Kollywood and Tollywood. She has put her past behind and is back in Billa, the combination will be a new and different one with Ajith Kumar, whose fans much anticipate any release of their actor.

Pooja Umashankar is the late arrival to the previous role of Praveena as Billa's girlfriend. The Ajith-Pooja partnership was talked about after Attagasam, which did well at the box office.

The release date of the film has been set as Diwali 2007, where it will face competition from various other films. It will be Ajith's third and last film of the year.

Themes

The film covers many different themes within it like love, the love between Ajith (Billa) and Pooja at the start although the theme of love is dark as their business seems to be illegal and dangerous, the lovers seem to love the haste. Their love is true love, Pooja's is also true love as when Billa is found out to be dead she mourns for him and tells everyone that she still does love him, Billa eventually come back at the end showing devotion to his lover to escape from the police. Another issue within the story is revenge as Nayanthara is thought to be wanting revenge for the death of her brother by killing Billa, whilst pretending to be his friend. This is the Vendetta theme which is widely research throughout the film, the theme is also researched through the DSP as he wants to get rid of the Drug Lord, Billa's Boss by training Jeeva.

There are also many other assumptions and explorations that can be made into the film such as evil in the form of Billa, Drug Lord and the DSP. The evil involved the basic priciples of killing for their own benefits and to make themselves happy as all three of the characters had done in the play. We can also talk about the demise of Jeeva as he died in a heart attack, this can be seen as good never wins, evils and the desire to kill proceeds through life.

Development

Billa was made by many of the related same filmmakers involved in another Ajith Kumar starrer, Kireedam. In 2007 after Kireedam, L.Suresh revealed his interests in working with Vishnuvardhan again. The casting of the film was left to Vishnuvardhan and L.Suresh after Vishnuvardhan himself had finalized the story. He selected the title, Billa at first, hinting a possible remake of an episode of the Kollywood movie starring Super Star Rajinikanth, Billa, but he comfirmed the rumours claiming it was a brand new script written for the modern generation. The original idea of the roles of Billa and Jeeva were written for Rajanikanth, in 1980, the praise from the yesteryear hit allowed this film to go ahead. After consideration, the roles of Billa and Jeeva finally were offered to Ajith Kumar, who was high on the success of Varalaru, produced by NIC Arts. Ajith Kumar accepted the offer in November 2006, ready to start the work after his, Kireedam was completed. Nayanthara who was yet to appear in a Tamil film after her split up with Simbu, signed up during the pre-production stages in January 2007. Pooja Umashankar, who had worked with Vishnuvardhan in Pattiyal, was added to the project in March 2007.

The film's Puja, a popular trend in Indian movies, was held at the AVM Studios in Vadapalani, Chennai. Vishnuvardhan began Billa with a presentation different from his previous other films. A star-studded guest line-up arrived for the puja ceremonies held in March 2007. Vijay, Jayam Ravi and Rajinikanth all attended the ceremony as chief guests. Directors Ameer, Shankar, A. R. Murugadoss, R. C. Sakthi and many others made it a point to come to the function to check out the Tamil film puja in 2007. Actresses Nayanthara and Pooja Umashankar lit the Kuthu Valakku, a flame holder, as Rajinikanth presented Vishnuvardhan with the clapboard for the movie. Actors Sivakumar, Surya, Karthik, Prabhu and Santhanam, were all in attendance as well. Nayanthara, Pooja Umashankar, Ajith, Sujatha, Vishnuvardhan and just about anyone else associated with the shooting of the film, gave speeches on how the film was going on and the where abouts and happening in the shoots.

Influences

Influences from Vishnuvardhan's other popular films like Pattiyal and Arinthum Ariyamalum have been noted. The use of the time-slice method in the film, as with The Matrix films and earlier used by Shankar in his film Anniyan, as well as the Farah Khan directed Main Hoon Na, proved popular with the audience. The Special Effects are to be provided by Big Freeze, a department based in London. Art Direction for the film was provided by Raju Sundaram. Vishnuvardhan has also gained experience from previous hits of recent times such as Don, Anniyan and even the Rajinikanth yesteryear starer Billa. The film as a whole shows Ajith in a double role. One of the roles as a don is influenced by the character of Shahrukh Khan in Don in 2006, Amitabh Bachan in Don in 1980 and Rajinikanth in Billa in 1980.

Box Office

• The film is all set for a Diwali 2007 release.
• It is set to have stiff competition from other films from ators such as Surya in Vel, Vikram in Kandasaamy and Simbu in Kettavan.

Trivia

The original Don was remade in Tamil in the 1980s as Billa. L. Suresh Balaji of Ananda Pictures will produce this film. Nirav Shah will handle the camera. Yuvan Shankar Raja will score the music.The film will begin rolling in March 2007 after the completion of Kireedam.