Swimming against the tide) is a 2013 Indian Tamil-language sports comedy drama film written and directed by R. S. Durai Senthilkumar in his directorial debut.

The music for the film is composed by Anirudh Ravichander, with cinematography performed by R. Velraj and editing by Kishore Te.

As a boy, Kunjithapadham faces many problems and embarrassments due to his name, as his peers call him "Kunju" or "Kunji" (the private part of the male body).

He meets a trainer, J. Prakash, alias JP, who takes him to his former student Valli, who had quit athletics.

During the marathon, Harish faces stiff competition from one of Raja Singh's rookies, but he eventually wins the race and publicly reveals Valli's innocence.

A man named Dinakaran, acting on Harish's advice, proposes his love to Valli, and she accepts.

[1][2] Priya Anand, the lead actress, revealed that Ethir Neechal is a city-based story without cheap comedy, vulgar dialogues or inappropriate scenes.

The technical crew includes Velraj as the cinematographer, Kishore Te as the editor, G. Durairaj handling the art direction, Anu Parthasarathy as the costume designer, Stunt Silva choreographing the action sequences,[7] and Baba Bhaskar as dance choreographer.

[9] Principal photography wrapped on 22 February 2013,[10] with the post-production activities being commenced after the shoot which was completed on 24 April 2013.

[23] M Suganth of The Times of India gave 3 out of 5 stars, stating, "The first half of Ethir Neechal follows the current Tamil cinema formula of ‘laughs first, plot next’.

"[24] Baradwaj Rangan for The Hindu wrote "Sivakarthikeyan looks like he’s getting there — he’s not yet a star, at least in the leading-man sense,[sic] he gets a feature-length platform to display his comic chops".

[25] Malini Mannath of The New Indian Express stated "Ethir Neechal is a mild passable entertainer".

[26] IANS stated, "The film starts off like every other romantic-comedy with adequate amount of comedy and drama, but there's hardly anything spectacular to rave about, including the story.

"[27] S. Saraswathi of Rediff.com gave 3.5 out of 5 stating "Ethir Neechal is a simple city-based romantic comedy that is guaranteed to provide some wholesome family entertainment.