Jai (2004 Tamil film)

Jai
Directed by	S. Narayan
Produced by	Thiagarajan
Written by	Jai Prabhakar (dialogues)
Story by	V. V. Vinayak
Starring	Prashanth Anshu Ambani Thiagarajan Rajkiran Bhanupriya Rajan P. Dev
Music by	Mani Sharma
Cinematography	P. K. H. Dass
Edited by	P. R. Soundar Raj
Production company	Lakshmi Shanthi Movies
Release date	14 January 2004 (2004-01-14)
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Jai is a 2004 Tamil language action film directed by S. Narayan, who had previously worked primarily on Kannada language films. The film featured Prashanth and Anshu Ambani in the lead roles while Thiagarajan, Rajkiran and Bhanupriya played supporting roles. A remake of the successful 2002 Telugu film Aadi, the film had music composed by Mani Sharma and was produced by Thiagarajan. Jai was released in January 2004.

Nallamuthu (Rajkiran) receives Veerapandi (Thiagarajan), his wife (Bhanupriya) and 8-year-old son Jai returning from USA after a long gap. Veerapandi’s late father was a well-known factionist in that area and owned a land of 4,000 acres (1,600 ha). While leaving for USA, Veerapandi gave the responsibility of managing this land to Vajravelu (Rajan P. Dev). Now back in India, Veerapandi realises that Vajravelu is misusing his power. He wants to donate all his land to the 2000 families staying in that village. When Vajravelu comes to know of this charity giveaway, he attacks Veerapandi, killing him and his wife. Nallamuthu being a trusted lieutenant of Veerapandi, takes the kid Jai and escapes to the city. After the murders, Veerapandi’s trusted people are put in jail with a prison sentence of 14 years. After 12 years later, the now grown up Jai (Prashanth) studying in a college, falls in love with Nandhini (Anshu Ambani), daughter of Vajravelu. Nallamuthu has raised Jai in Chennai as a fun-loving boy but he grows up a hot tempered young lad. Completing her studies, Nandhini returns to her hometown at her father's place. After a hiatus of 14 years, Jai comes along with other trusted members of his father who are released from jail. Nallamuthu wants to take revenge on Vajravelu and get back all the land so that he can distribute it to the villagers. The rest of the film deals with how Jai succeeds.

Thiagarajan purchased the remake rights of the successful of V. V. Vinayak's successful Telugu film Aadi (2002) and signed on R. Madhesh to be the film's director. An initial pre-production poster of the film was reported in the media to have attracted a clash with another film in production during the period, Saamy (2003), which featured Prashanth's cousin Vikram. Madhesh planned Tibet as a potential location to film and began negotiations with international stunt choreographers Sammo Hung and Yuen Woo-ping to have them in the film. However, after filming a song featuring Prashanth and lead actress Simran which was choreographed by Remo D'Souza, he left the project and began work on another film Madurey. He was then replaced by Kannada director S. Narayan, who with the venture marked his debut in Tamil cinema. Simran also subsequently left the project and the song which had been shot was converted into an item number, the song was shot at AVM Studios with a set erected costing 1 and half crore with using a technology called Mirror Image. The team then approached Preity Zinta, though the actress was unwilling to commit to star in a Tamil film during the period. Subsequently the team signed on London based actress Anshu Ambani, who had appeared in the Telugu films Manmadhudu (2002) and Raghavendra (2003). Producer Thiagarajan also made an acting comeback with the film after a long gap with Jai and featured as father to his real life son, Prashanth, while Rajkiran and Rajan P. Dev (who played the role in original film) were signed on for other pivotal roles.