Jayam (2003 film)

Jayam
Directed by	M. Raja
Written by	Prasanna Kumar (dialogues)
Story by	Teja
Based on	Jayam (Telugu)
Produced by	M. Varalakshmi Editor Mohan
Starring	Jayam Ravi Sadha Gopichand
Cinematography	R. Rathnavelu
Edited by	Editor Mohan
Music by	R. P. Patnaik
Production company	M. L. Movie Aarts
Release date	21 June 2003 (2003-06-21)
Running time	162 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Jayam (transl. Victory) is a 2003 Indian Tamil-language romantic action film directed by M. Raja in his Tamil debut. The film is a remake of the 2002 Telugu-language film with the same title. It featured Raja's brother Ravi and Sadha in their first Tamil ventures respectively, with the latter reprising her role from the Telugu movie. The film features Gopichand, who is also reprising his role, alongside an ensemble supporting cast including Rajeev, Pragathi, Nizhalgal Ravi, Radha Ravi, Nalini, Senthil, and Suman Setty. The music was composed by R. P. Patnaik.

The film released on 21 June 2003 to mixed reviews but was a sleeper hit. The success prompted Ravi to retain the film's title as a prefix to his stage name. Till date, Jayam is the first and only Tamil film which Gopichand has acted.

The film begins with a flashback in the early 1980s, where a young Sujatha and Raghu are playing. Their fathers are best friends and have decided that Raghu and Sujatha would eventually get married in the future. As the two go to high school, Sujatha becomes an ideal student whereas Raghu becomes a good-for-nothing man. He steals money and gambles with grown-up, catching bad habits. Once, he beats Sujatha's classmate for being close with her while studying and he and Sujatha have a fallout, swearing to never meet again. Eventually, Raghu's family move away and as days go by both forget about each other.

Coming to the present, Sujatha grown up to be a beautiful young woman, who her father adores. On the outskirts of their village Pushpathoor lives Ravi. Ravi belongs to a poor family and was raised by his widowed mother. Ravi teaches tuition for kids and runs errands around the village for money. He is an obedient and polite man. He has a group of friends and they all go to the same collage as Sujatha and become her classmate. Initially Sujatha does not talk to him but after sometime, both fall in love. This is known to Sujatha's younger sister Kalyani. As days go by, Sujatha openly reciprocates Ravi's love. The two travel on the same compartment in the train and are spotted by Sujatha's family astrologer. He conveys the same to her father, who then forbids her to go to collage and contacts his old friend to speak of marriage of Sujatha with his son, Raghu.

Raghu had turned out to be an arrogant rogue and womaniser. He is persuaded by his mother to meet Sujatha, and Raghu comes to Pushpathoor to see her, but has no interest. But when he meets Sujatha, he falls for her beauty and wants to marry her. When Sujatha conveys about her love for Ravi, Raghu threatens her. The wedding plans happen on full swing. Ravi too gets beaten up by Raghu in front of Sujatha. Ravi home is also trashed by Raghu's men who threaten his mother. Ravi's mother however wants her son to fight back and if he dies, it should be victorious and not like a coward. Heeding his mother's words, Ravi challenges Raghu. Ravi gets determined and warns Raghu that he and Sujatha will get married and will take Sujatha at 7:00 am. Enraged, Raghu tells the family to complete the wedding. Sujatha goes into the room to change, but she is actually waiting for Ravi after learning about his message. Ravi and Sujatha escape before Raghu arrives. After an intense chase, Ravi and Sujatha are cornered by Raghu and his men in the forest. Ravi and Raghu challenge each other in an intense hand-to-hand combat, where Ravi finally defeats Raghu. With Sujatha's father's approval, Ravi and Sujatha get married in presence of Raghu and her family members.

Songs and background score is handled by R.P. Patnaik making his debut in Tamil.^[2] For the tamil remake, Patnaik replaced "Raanu Raanu" with "Thiruvizhannu Vantha" (based on "Gaajuvaka Pilla" from Nuvvu Nenu) because the song was remade as "Kai Kai Vekran" for Bagavathi.

1. "Kanamoochi" - Shankar Mahadevan
2. "Kavithayae Theriyuma" - Harini, Manicka Vinayagam, R.P. Patnaik
3. "Thiruvizhannu Vantha" - Tippu, Gowri, Raja, Ravi
4. "Vandi Vandi Railu Vandi" - Tippu, Manicka Vinayagam
5. "Kaathal Kaathal" - Karthik
6. "Kaathal Thandha Vali" - Karthik, Ganga Sitharasu
7. "Kodi Kodi Minnalgal" - Vijay Yesudas

Jayam opened to mixed reviews, with a critic from The Hindu stating the film gave a sense of "déjà vu" but added that Raja's "treatment is interesting in patches".^[3] Visual Dasan of Kalki praised the performances of Ravi, Sadha and Gopichand, flashback in the beginning of the film but panned for forcibly adding double meaning dialogues, illegal affairs and plagiarised scenes from English films and concluded calling it another film from Telugu which came to get rid of Tamil identities from Tamil films.^[4]

The film went on to become a surprise success at the box office and prompted both Raja and Ravi to adopt "Jayam" to their stage names as a prefix, while their home production studio was renamed Jayam Company. The film collected 25 crores at the box office and became commercially successful.^[5][6]

• Jayam at IMDb