The film stars Vijay in dual roles, alongside Samantha, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Sathish, Sudip Mukherjee, Rama, and Jeeva Ravi.

Jeeva was a communist ideologue and post-graduate in hydrology from the arid village of Thanoothu in Tirunelveli district who had discovered groundwater under some lands of the hamlet.

Unaware that Jeeva is heading for Chennai with Vivek's henchmen, Kathir attempts to convince the media to bring the villagers' plight to national consciousness.

Since the villagers who have denied supporting the factory are abroad and cannot come to Chennai so soon to rebut Shirag's claims, Kathir decides to take drastic measures to sensationalise the issue.

[32] Neil had lost weight for the role and modelled his looks to be along the lines of the American actor Brad Pitt and the English footballer David Beckham.

[33] The film was launched in Kolkata on 3 February 2014 by Lyca Productions with a pooja ceremony in front of the Kalighat Kali Temple, after which principal photography began.

[53] The film also deals with several themes such as water scarcity,[54][55] corruption, communism, the ill-effects of capitalism and industrialisation and problems faced by farmers in daily lives.

[60] In the press meet scene, the character Kathiresan mentions several political incidents, this included the 2G spectrum case, and the encroachment of Pepsi in the banks of river Thamirabharani.

He added that the deep borewells and encroachment of the lakes and ponds were responsible for the water scarcity and not just the multinational soft-drink companies, as shown in the film.

[67] According to Bhuvanesh Chandar of The Hindu, "Many films of actor-turned-politician Vijay, like Thamizhan, Kaththi, and Mersal have used press conferences to tell audiences a message without breaking the fourth wall; this is a trope that can be looked at as an evolution from the Parasakthi-like or Citizen-like speech by the hero at a courthouse.

[26] Before signing the project, Anirudh had composed the theme music of the film,[70] which was accompanied with the motion poster was released on YouTube on 22 June 2014, coinciding with actor Vijay's birthday.

[103] The 41-second first-look motion poster drew comparisons with the popular minute-long advertisement campaign run by a Turkish newspaper, Sabah, to announce their distribution of the New York Times as a supplement.

The motion poster of the film showed prominent places in Chennai and the entire city itself in the form of newspaper clippings and headlines, just like the advertisement campaign, without an acknowledgement to the makers of the original.

Since, there was no favourable reply from the director, he filed a case in the Thanjavur High Court against Vijay, Murugadoss, Lyca Productions and the cinematographer George C.

[110] The case went on for four years, and since there was no development, Anbu with his family, subjected to a 10-day hunger strike from 31 October to 10 November 2018,[111] and also filed a petition signed by over 100 villagers, which was submitted to the office of Edappadi K. Palaniswami, the then-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

[109] In December 2019, the Madras High Court dismissed the proceedings against Vijay, Lyca and three others, saying that "there was no material against them about the allegations of plagiarism and the short film had not been registered under the Copyright Act, 1957".

[120] A statement with a detailed clarification was shown in which it was mentioned that Lyca did not have any business links with Rajapaksa or anyone else related to him, thereby confirming the planned release of the film on Diwali.

[125][126] Later, actor Vijay confirmed that the issues with the pro-Tamils' have been resolved and Lyca Productions' name was being removed from the film and its promotional materials, thereby meeting their demands.

The distributor Ayngaran International stated that Kaththi had the biggest opening for a Tamil film in UK since it released in over 70 screens there and also topped the weekend box office in Malaysia.

[147] S. Saraswathi of Rediff stated, "Kaththi attempts to highlight the pathetic condition of farmers, whose lives are being destroyed by callous multinational corporations" and rated it 3 out of 5 as well.

[6] Arathi Kannan of Onmanorama rated 3.25 out of 5 and wrote "The screenplay could have benefited with some good writing; to actually be narrating pertinent issues inside the fabric of an entertainer doesn’t quite justify it.

Murugadoss brings to the fore critical social issues like farmers suicide, water scarcity, etc, but at times it looks too preachy.

[150] In contrast, Baradwaj Rangan of The Hindu wrote "The ideas are snappy – the reveal of the person injured in a shootout; the identity of a couple of television reporters – but the staging is shockingly flat.

"[151] M. Suganth of The Times of India gave 3 stars out of 5 and wrote, "unlike Thuppakki, the previous Murugadoss-Vijay effort, Kaththi is overlong, over-the-top, over-familiar, and overtly preachy".

[152] Writing for India Today, Haricharan Pudipeddi gave 2.5 out of 5 and summarised "Kaththi is a commercial film and naturally audiences except some heroism, action and romance in it.

[166][167] It was officially confirmed in December 2015, with Chiranjeevi's son Ram Charan making his debut as a producer,[168] by financing the project under Konidela Production Company.

[190] Social media and news articles cited Kaththi as one of Vijay's films that elevated him to the path of super-stardom, that eventually continued after the success of Mersal (2017), Sarkar (2018) and Bigil (2019).

If the movie's overall design has a farmer at the centre, like Lenin Bharathi's slightly arty Merku Thodarchi Malai (2018), then there is absolutely no room for doubts over the film’s intent [...] Case two is when filmmakers milk a societal issue to its maximum potential, to elicit responses from the audience.

[197] This eventually became a subject of criticism from cinephiles, as the trope being felt "repetitive" and "formulaic"[200][201] and the commercial factors divert the "message regarding the problems faced by farmers in India".

[200][201] The scene where Kathiresan (Vijay) visualises a floor plan in three-dimensions was parodied by Neeraj Madhav in Adi Kapyare Kootamani (2015) and Sivakarthikeyan in Rajinimurugan (2016).