A romantic thriller set in a village, the film was produced by Raja's father Mohan and starred his younger brother, Ravi, in the lead role alongside Sadha, who had featured in the original version.

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".

[5][6] Raja then worked with his father and brother on the production of M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi (2004), a remake of the Telugu film Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi (2003).

Subsequently, the duo came together for another home production titled Something Something... Unakkum Enakkum (2006), which would be a remake of Prabhu Deva's successful Telugu film, Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana.

The film opened to positive reviews in July 2006, with Behindwoods.com noting Raja "should be applauded for hand picking a cast that makes the movie worth watching", while remarking that "it has everything that can well set the box office collections soaring".

[13] Likewise Sify added the film was "like a saccharine coated candy floss champion that is superbly packaged" and The Hindu stated "Raja has a way of making remakes successful".

A critic from Sify.com noted "Raja, a past master at remakes, is once again a winner" and that the film "has simple charm, immensely likeable characters, and the intrinsic humour in the writing makes it a must watch".

[28] In late 2009, Raja agreed terms to work with actor Vijay, and spent ten months writing a script based on a story written by director Thirupathisamy in the early 2000s.

Thirupathisamy had gone on to make the story into a Telugu film titled Azad (2000), while also began pre-production work to remake it in Tamil as Velan with Vijay and Priyanka Chopra in 2001, before he died later that year.

Raja subsequently bought the remake rights and re-worked the script of Azad to suit Tamil audiences and signed on Genelia D'Souza and Hansika Motwani to play other lead roles.

[33][34] In early 2012, Raja began pre-production on remaking the Tamil film Ramanaa (2002) into Hindi with Akshay Kumar and Tamannaah in the lead roles.

[35][36] Raja then briefly forayed into acting and played the father of quadruplets in the comedy thriller, Enna Satham Indha Neram (2014), directed by his friend, Guru Ramesh.

[37] After taking a sabbatical, Raja began working on his first original script for the production house AGS Entertainment in late 2012 and was helped by the writer duo Subha.

After unsuccessful negotiations with Arya and Madhavan, Raja cast Arvind Swamy in the role of the main antagonist because he wanted "an actor whose attractiveness would act as a distraction from his evilness".

"[1] While other filmmakers in Tamil cinema have often taken to plagiarism without acknowledging the source material, Raja has only worked on officially approved remake projects and his first six directed films were credited to other writers.

[22] He works with his team of assistants to blend in changes to the script to suit the culture of Tamil audiences, and thrashes out every single shot from the original version to add or subtract sequences.