Malai Malai

Malai Malai
Official film poster
Directed by	A. Venkatesh
Produced by	Mrs. Susil Mohan M. Hemanth
Written by	Pattukkottai Prabakar
Screenplay by	A. Venkatesh
Story by	A. Venkatesh
Starring	Arun Vijay Prabhu Vedhicka Prakash Raj Kasthuri Santhanam
Music by	Mani Sharma
Cinematography	A. Venkatesh
Edited by	V. T. Vijayan
Production company	Feather Touch Entertainments
Distributed by	Feather Touch Entertainments
Release date	31 July 2009 (2009-07-31)
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Malai Malai is a 2009 Tamil language film, starring Arun Vijay, Prabhu and Vedhicka in the lead roles. The film released on 31 July 2009 and turned out to be a surprise hit at the box office. The film has also been dubbed into Hindi as Champion - The Winner.

Palanivel (Prabhu) and Vetrivel (Arun Vijay) are two brothers who eke out a living as a farmer and a minivan driver respectively in a village on the foothills of Palani temple. They are inseparable and they fight, sing, and booze together, and when Vetri falls in love with a city based RJ Anjali (Vedhika) who is on a visit to Palani, he finds another girl Lakshmi (Kasthuri) to romance his brother.

Meanwhile, the village simpleton Vetri goes to Chennai in search of a job and in search of his lady love. He gets a job as a driver in a courier company which also employs people like Vimala Hassan (Santhanam), a crazy fan of Kamal Hassan. Enters the villain Essakki (Prakash Raj) a dreaded don who controls Saidapet area of the city, and soon locks horns with Vetri. The rest of the story moves along predictable lines before the steamy sentimental action-packed climax.

Pooja Umashankar walked out of the film due to the film's long delay to start. instead Vedhika was selected. Kasthuri was selected to play an important role making her comeback to Tamil cinema.

Actor Arun Vijay and the cinematographers were arrested by the Thai army when the shoot was on for this film at Ko Man Islands near Pattaya City, It was only when the location manager and the producer explained the story to concerned officials that those arrested were released, The shooting came to a halt until the crew were released. The shooting of the film took place in Langavi Islands in Malaysia. Arun Vijay, Choreographer and Vedhika went as a team to the island for shooting. The shooting took place for a long time and by the time crew left it became dark and they missed the way and stranded in the mid sea for more than 2 hours but luckily they were saved. Set of the temple town Palani has been erected at Sriperambadhur for shooting of the film, Since the story of the film happens in Palani, set of the temple including market place, shops and streets have been erected in Sriperambadhur for 50 lakhs. A fight sequence featuring Arun Vijay clashing with the villains has been shot under the guidance of the stunt master Kanal Kannan. Scenes featuring Vedhika is also being shot here. Four cameras are being used for the shooting at this spot. Mumtaj was said to be appearing in an item number which proved false. During the shooting, the makers did a charity work to underprivileged rural areas. These donations have been used to provide adequate number of Ambulance facility to the villages of Ramanadhapuram, Pattukottai, Dindugal. Shooting for the climax has been on at Binny Mills and whilst acting out a stunt sequence involving jumping over the camera, Arun Vijay hurt his rib cage and arm. Luckily, the injuries weren't major and the actor went about shooting the scenes after rest for a couple of hours.