Aalwar

2007 film directed by Chella
the Hindu saints

Aalwar is a 2007 Indian Tamil language action drama film directed by S. Chella in his directoral debut and produced by Mohan Natarajan. The film stars Ajith Kumar and Asin in the lead roles. Vivek, Keerthi Chawla, Lal, Shwetha Bandekar and Aditya Srivastava appear in other pivotal roles. The film's score and soundtrack is by Srikanth Deva while the cinematography was by G. Ramesh. Aalwar released on 12 January 2007 to highly negative reviews and became a commercial failure.

Aalwar is a Hindu priest in Madurai and he is devoted to his mother and sister. But Punniyamoorthy and his brothers, the heir of the Temple where Aalwar works as priest, kill Aalwar's sister and mother due to an old dispute with Aalwar. Aalwar, with revenge ringing in his mind, ends up as a killer, even while working as a ward boy in a hospital. He rechristens himself as Mortuary Shiva and is out to make a statement against the venal forces. He sees himself as some kind of avatar. In fact, he bumps off the baddies under the getup of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna. In the climax, Shiva turns up as Lord Narasimha and bumps off the last villain by placing him on his thighs and ripping apart his bowels and chest with his sharp claws. He successfully escapes from the police of Chennai and continues his process of "Dharma".

Ajith teamed up with a debutant Chella for a film to be produced by Mohan Natarajan. Chella had previously worked as an associate to S. J. Suryah. The film held its photo session on 20 July 2006 with Asin being selected once again while Ramesh G was chosen as cinematographer. The film began at the Ramoji Rao Studios in Hyderabad in August 2006 where a hospital set was built, with ajith putting on weight for the film. A couple of songs were filmed in Switzerland as the film geared up for a Pongal release. Shalini, Ajith's wife, was the costume designer for Ajith in the film.

Soundtrack was composed by Srikanth Deva.

The film opened on 12 January 2007 along with Vijay's Pokkiri and Vishal's Thaamirabharani and received negative reviews from critics, with Sify. com praising Ajith and Asin's performances but criticized the plot of the movie by labelling it as a "built on a predictable premise" Another critic described the film as "below average" citing that "the biggest drawback is that the story does not have a strong plot or surprising twists and that "there is also a palpable lack of chemistry between the characters and this gives the picture a poorly contrived feel." Rediff. com's review concluded that "Chella's directorial debut lacks originality and is a hotch potch of celebrated scripts of the past. Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "With an absurd script, insipid narration, and with neither the role nor the performance working out here for him, it's like Ajith has lost whatever ground he'd gained with his splendid performance in 'Varalaru'". Lajjavathu of Kalki wrote this is director Chella's debut film. The screenplay could have been more intense. Since the stories of revenge have already been seen in many different ways in many films and it is not told in a new way in Aalwar, we could not able to connect with the film.