He Came to Rule) is a 2001 Indian action thriller film[2] directed by Suresh Krissna and produced by Kalaipuli S. Thanu.

The film features Kamal Haasan in dual roles, alongside Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala, Sarath Babu, Gollapudi Maruti Rao, Madurai G.S.

While Aalavandhan underperformed commercially upon its release, it was positively received in subsequent years and achieved cult status, with some critics praising it as being ahead of its time.

[10] Major Vijay Kumar, a Black Cat commando, leads a team to rescue tourists held hostage by terrorists in Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Vijay decides to visit his twin brother Nanda Kumar, also known as Nandu, who has been confined to a mental asylum for murdering their stepmother, Jayanthi.

Believing he must save Vijay, Nandu escapes the asylum after killing two inmates, Sulthan and Paasha, leaving no evidence of his whereabouts.

Nandu later confronts his maternal uncle, who had a role in his incarceration, causing the man to choke and die from the shock.

However, a drug-induced playfulness triggers Nandu's memories of Jayanthi's abuse, leading him to brutally murder Sharmilee.

When a teacher complained about Nandu’s behavior, he blamed the toxic home environment, angering Santhosh, who punished them.

Later, Vijay found out about Jayanthi's affair with another man, and Nandu’s attempt to inform their father was dismissed, resulting in a beating.

Nandu overpowers Vijay and corners Teju, who defends herself with a belt, triggering his traumatic memories of Jayanthi's punishments.

Nandu visualises his mother asking him to join her as Jayanthi is torturing her up there, leading him to apologise to Vijay and Teju for his actions.

In the early 1980s, Kamal Haasan wrote a story titled Dhayam that was serialised in the magazine journal, Idhayam Pesugiradhu.

[13] In 2000, he picked up the story again and agreed to make the film with director Suresh Krissna, a former assistant of Balachander, and producer S. Thanu.

When Thanu had agreed to produce a film for Haasan, he had initially rejected the storylines of Pammal K. Sambandam and Nala Damayanthi.

[14] This prompted the pair to begin work on Dhayam instead, and the film was revealed to be called Aalavandhan in Tamil and Abhay in Hindi.

[15][16] Mahesh Mahadevan was signed on to compose the background music, Tirru was selected to be the cinematographer and Sameer Chanda was picked to be the art director.

[17] The film featured Haasan in two distinct roles, for one of which he had his head shaved bald and gained ten kilograms.

To play the other in the film, he went to the National Defence Academy for a crash course and also consulted his co-actor Major Ravi, who was a former officer in the Indian Army.

Another fight sequence was shot in Delhi for 15 days using 39 cars with 3 cameras with a machine called Airramp brought from abroad for jumping scenes.

The film features six tracks in both Tamil and Hindi versions with lyrics written by Vairamuthu and Javed Akhtar respectively.

[41] Rediff author R. Swaminathan said, "What happens when an exceptionally talented actor develops an inexplicable urge to delve into the dark side of the human psyche, and worse, decides to paint the town red about it?