Kadhalan

Loverboy) is a 1994 Indian Tamil-language romantic thriller film directed by S. Shankar and produced by K. T. Kunjumon, who co-wrote the story.

The film stars Prabhu Deva and Nagma (in her debut in Tamil cinema), alongside Vadivelu, Raghuvaran, Girish Karnad and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam.

Kunjumon decided to collaborate with Shankar for the second time after the success of Gentleman (1993) and the story Shankar developed was that of a romance between an ordinary man and a wealthy girl; to increase the scale of the project, Kunjumon incorporated the cold-war between the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalalithaa and governor Marri Chenna Reddy into the script.

Kakarla Sathyanarayana, the governor of Tamil Nadu, inaugurates a new open market in Madras, but as Mallikarjuna, a bomb specialist, planted a bomb the night before, the market area explodes minutes after Kakarla leaves, leaving the state government thrown into disarray.

Unknown to anyone, Kakarla is an aide of the National ruling party and was paid heavily to topple the state government by horse-trading of MLAs.

Kakarla instead chose to create law and order disarray and dismiss the legislature using Article 356 of the Constitution of India.

Ajay and the squad reach the temple, remove the bomb and bring Shruti back by helicopter.

The police arrest Prabhu and Vasanth and Kakarla tells Malli to make the bomb detonate after his visit to the hospital to see the Vice President of India undergoing treatment there.

After the success of Gentleman (1993), producer K. T. Kunjumon of A. R. S. Film International decided to collaborate with director S. Shankar for the second time.

Kunjumon liked the plot and, "to turn this into as grand a film as was possible", he decided to incorporate the cold-war between the then Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa and the then governor Marri Chenna Reddy into the screenplay.

Shankar was initially reluctant to have him as the lead actor as distributors felt audience would not accept him in that role because of his "lean physique" and "bearded look".

[9] Kunjumon initially wanted to have Goundamani play Vasanth, but he did not accept, citing scheduling conflicts; Vadivelu was instead chosen.

[5] While S. P. Balasubrahmanyam played the role of Prabhu Deva's father, Padmapriya was reluctant to portray Prabhu Deva's mother; she relented after believing the role would give her a break, like how Keladi Kannmanii (1990) did for Radhika who played Balasubrahmanyam's pair in that film.

[11][12] Art director Thota Tharani specially created a glass framed bus for the song.

"[5] Venki Sambamoorthy was chosen to handle the visual effects for the film,[13] and he had done by outsourcing the work to technicians from abroad.

[11] Other filming locations included Kumbakonam, Chidambaram, Pollachi, Delhi, and it took eleven months to be completed.

with lyrics written by Vaali, Vairamuthu and director Shankar who penned the "Petta Rap" number.

Nearly a dozen versions of the song were churned out, a feat that earned "Mukkabla" and Rahman a place in the Limca Book of Records.

[18] The dubbed Hindi version of the soundtrack, Humse Hai Muqabala, sold 2.5 million units in India.

"[3] K. Vijiyan of New Straits Times said, "Sadly, the love story is not all that endearing as it is eclipsed by the dance songs.

"[25] R. P. R. of Kalki praised the film for its grandeur, but criticised its story and Prabhu Deva's performance for being overshadowed by his dancing.