Unnai Ninaithu

Unnai Ninaithu
Directed by	Vikraman
Produced by	K. Muralitharan V. Swaminathan G. Venugopal
Written by	Vikraman
Starring	Suriya Laila Sneha
Music by	Sirpy
Cinematography	Balasubramaniem
Edited by	V. Jaishankar
Production company	Lakshmi Movie Makers
Release dates	10 May 2002
Running time	163 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Unnai Ninaithu (English: Thinking About You) is a 2002 Indian Tamil film directed by Vikraman, starring Suriya, Laila and Sneha in the lead roles. The film opened to mixed reviews in May 2002, but went on to perform well at the box office, while also being remade into several other Indian regional languages.

Plot

The basic story of the movie involves Laila and Suriya falling in love. A 3rd character gets entangled in the plot and Laila is compelled by her family to marry him. Heart-broken Suriya leaves her alone, but only to find out that the man she is engaged to marry is a total crook. In trying to prove this to Laila, Suriya always ends up in situations where he looks like the crook. Infuriated and disgusted Laila yells at Suriya telling him to back off. Suriya then officially leaves her alone. Sneha gets weaved into the plot and ends up falling for Suriya's charm, and fastidious behaviour and they end up having great times together, that is until Laila comes back all heart-broken after finding out her boyfriend wants nothing further to do with her as he was going to marry someone else. Upon seeing this Suriya becomes greatly disturbed and helps Laila out in all the ways he can. In the end Laila is moving back to her hometown and at the train station asks for Suriya's hand in marriage, only to find that he is not interested. He states that love isn't like a tape-recorder to play over and over again, it only comes once. He tells her he is now only interested in Sneha who will wait for him all her life. He sees her off and is leaving the train station when Sneha runs up to him. They both smile at each other and walk off into the sun set.

Cast

• Suriya as Surya
• Laila as Nirmala
• Sneha as Radha
• Ramesh Khanna as Krishnamoorthy
• Chitra Lakshmanan as Vaidyalingam
• Charle as Mei Meiyappan
• R. Sundarrajan
• Sheela as Radha's Sister
• Thalaivasal Vijay as Nirmala's Father
• Pallavi as Nirmala's Mother
• Ramji as Selvam
• Hari Prashanth as Nirmala's brother
• Mayilsamy
• Sathyapriya as Radha's Mother
• Uma Maheshwari as Radha's Sister
• Kumaresan as Room Boy
• Manager Cheena as Deluxe room customer
• Pandu
• Singamuthu
• Vanaja

Production

Vikraman had chosen Vijay to play the lead role in the film, and the actor shot for the film for a few days before opting out of the project, owing to creative differences. He was subsequently replaced by Suriya. Vikram also briefly considered casting actor Prashanth, before finalising Suriya.

The team predominantly shot the film in Chennai, while songs were shot in Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. The team travelled to Kandy and the Ramboda Falls to film sequences across Sri Lanka, and it became the first film by director Vikraman to be shot outside India.

Release

The film opened in May 2002 to mixed reviews from critics. A reviewer from The Hindu wrote, "the story must have had a strong theme to begin with and the screenplay surely aims at conveying something different. But things do not progress in that direction", and adds that "the treatment lacks punch". The reviewers from Sify.com gave the film a negative review, adding "the film is very slow and one feels that the story is as old as the hills", adding it is a "rehash of the director's earlier hits and is long winded and extremely slow paced mainly due to illogical story, songs pushed into the narrative and a jarring comedy track".

The film went on to perform well at the box office, and did exceptional business in town and village theatres across Tamil Nadu. Owing to the film's success, it was later remade in Telugu as Cheppave Chirugali (2004) by Vikraman, while it was also made in Kannada as Krishna (2007).

Awards

Award	Category	Nominee	Result
2002 Filmfare Awards South	Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress	Sneha	Won
2002 Tamil Nadu State Awards	Best Film	Unnai Ninaithu	Won
	Best Actress	Sneha	Won
	Best Music Director	Sirpy	Won
	Best Lyricist	Ravishankar	Won
	Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Male Playback	Unnimenon	Won