Attahasam

Attahasam
Directed by	Saran
Produced by	N. Palanisamy Jaya Prasanth N P. Karthikeyan
Written by	Saran
Starring	Ajith Kumar Pooja Sujatha
Music by	Bharathwaj
Cinematography	A. Venkatesh
Edited by	Suresh Urs
Production company	Vijayam Cine Combines
Distributed by	Ayngaran International
Release date	12 November 2004 (2004-11-12)
Running time	157 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Attahasam (English: Defiance) is a 2004 Tamil action masala film written and directed by Saran featuring Ajith Kumar in dual lead roles with Pooja playing the female lead. Sujatha, Karunas and Ramesh Khanna play pivotal roles in the film, while the score and soundtrack are composed by Bharathwaj the film became a hit on his career

The movie begins with Jeeva (Ajith Kumar), a driving instructor, leading a happy life with his mother (Sujatha). He also fell in love with Swapna (Pooja Umashankar) after several mishaps. Sujatha hides the Jeeva truth that his father (Nizhalgal Ravi), was murdered by a dada named Manthiram (Babu Antony). The mother, much against the boy’s wish, packs off Jeeva’s twin brother, Guru (also Ajith Kumar) with a family who offer to adopt him, who had been witness to the murderer from a close quarter, to a distant town. He escapes from the family and goes to Tuticorin and grows to become a gangster there.

When Jeeva visits Tuticorin, he comes across his elder brother, Guru a.k.a. Thala. Seizing the opportunity, the elder brother kidnaps the younger one and decides to go as the driving instructor to Chennai. Initially, he plans to take revenge on his mother for packing him off from their house at a very young age. He hurts her at every step and even plans to sell off all their property.

On the other hand, Jeeva is mistaken as the gangster and is subject to attacks by the local gangsters of Tuticorin. He escapes from them and returns to Chennai to save his mother. In the meantime, Guru comes to know about his father's death and Manthiram was the cause for the same. He avenges his father's death and leaves Jeeva with his mother to live happily and goes off to jail to keep his mother in belief that he is somewhere in the world living happily.

Saran and Ajith collaborated for the third time after the successes of Kadhal Mannan (1998) and Amarkalam (1999). Between then and 2004, the pair began shooting for another project for Poornachandra Rao titled Erumugam also starring Richa Pallod, before Ajith pulled out and the pair subsequently fell out. However Ajith Kumar's wife played a role in reconciling the pair and Saran worked on a fresh script for the actor. Kiran was initially roped in to play a second leading female role after her other film opposite Ajith, Mahaa, was shelved but Saran later deleted her character from the project.