Hunt and Play) is a 2006 Indian Tamil-language neo-noir action thriller film written and directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon.
The film stars Kamal Haasan and Jyothika, while Kamalinee Mukherjee, Prakash Raj, Daniel Balaji, and Salim Baig play supporting roles.
He immediately notices that she is going through a rough patch in her life and one night, worried about her safety, breaks into her room, only to find her attempting suicide by asphyxiation.
Later, Raghavan and Anderson find a connection between Rani's murder in Madurai and a 23-year-old unsolved disappearance of an Indian American girl Chandana, whose finger was also possibly found hanging in her boyfriend Hitesh's car.
Raghavan's instinct leads them to Chandana's body in a restricted area in the suburbs, found along with three other American women, murdered in a similar manner.
After narrowing down their suspects using flight records, Raghavan's and Anderson's suspicion falls onto two Indian doctors, who studied in Brooklyn Medical University: Amudhan Sukumaran and Ilamaaran Aanandhan, who are secretly involved in the killings.
Raghavan and Anderson break into the apartment and find pictures of the victims and the murder weapons, thus cracking their case and concluding that Amudhan and Illamaran are the serial killers.
He and Ilamaaran were locked up in the local station for the rest of the night, but Inspector Kumaravel neglected to interrogate them and tortured them heavily, even setting them up with a eunuch, who inadvertently assaulted them.
Both of them left for New York to pursue their higher studies in surgery and went on to abduct and kill local young women, who looked down on them or were disrespectful to them.
Thinking that Raghavan will be dead in minutes due to his lung injuries, they set their apartment on fire and take the next flight to Mumbai to escape from NYPD.
Amudhan and Ilamaran evade the Mumbai police at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport and finally reach Chennai, leaving a trail of bodies in their path.
During their flight, Aradhana explains that she has a daughter, who is living with her parents in Chennai, and she realised her mistake for being selfish and wanting to commit suicide.
As they wait in line for customs, Raghavan proposes to Aradhana, but she refuses, saying that she is not ready for another relationship, having just finalised her divorce, and wishes to focus on being a good mother to her daughter.
In 2005, Gautham Vasudev Menon planned to make a film in Malayalam (which eventually became Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu) and approached Mohanlal after finishing the script, but nothing materialised.
In order not to waste dates, Menon personally funded a schedule in Mumbai featuring Haasan and Jyothika and spent ₹80 lakh (equivalent to ₹2.7 crore or US$310,000 in 2023).
[6] The film however had gone through changes from the original script, with less emphasis on the antagonists than Menon had hoped, and he also revealed that scenes for songs were forced and shot without him.
Menon had planned to shoot more scenes in the city, including a car chase sequence, but the change of producer delayed the schedule and cold weather elongated the team's stay and increased costs.
[21] Krishna Kumar of Rediff.com gave 3.5/5 stars, saying "In his best performance in recent times, Kamal portrays the character with believable honesty and charm.
He added, "Gowtham alternates between action, thrills and romance, but it is quite obvious that he is unable to use Kamal Haasan’s talent fully".
[24] Lajjavathi of Kalki praised the acting of Kamal, Jyothika and Prakashraj, Ravivarman's cinematography, Harris Jayaraj's music but felt the second half was boring and psycho killers changing their looks were unbelievable.