() is a 2016 Indian sports drama film written and directed by Sudha Kongara. Filmed simultaneously in Tamil and Hindi, with the latter being titled as (), the film stars R. Madhavan as boxing coach who is ignored by the boxing association, tries to accomplish his dream by training an amateur boxer, Madhi, played by Ritika Singh in her acting debut. Both the Tamil and Hindi versions are produced by S. Sashikanth for YNOT Studios and UTV Motion Pictures, while C. V. Kumar's Thirukumaran Entertainment and Dream Factory distributed the Tamil version and the Hindi version was jointly distributed by Madhavan himself under the Tricolour Films banner along with Rajkumar Hirani Films.
Kongara wrote the script for the film in early 2011, and approached Madhavan for the leading role, for whom the film marks his comeback to Tamil cinema after four years. The pre-production works of the film began during 2013, and was officially announced by Sashikanth in May 2014. The film's shooting began in July 2014 and completed that December, with the entire film was shot within fifty days. Featuring music composed by Santhosh Narayanan, with a background score by Sanjay Wandrekar and Atul Raninga (for the Hindi version), the film has cinematography by Sivakumar Vijayan and editing by Sathish Suriya.
Both versions and opened on 29 January 2016. Unlike the Hindi version which received mixed reviews, the Tamil version opened to critical acclaim, praising the performances of Madhavan and Singh, whilst the story, direction and other technical aspects, too received appreciation. A commercial success at the box office, won the National Award for Special Mention (Ritika Singh), three Filmfare Awards: Best Director (Kongara), Best Actor (Madhavan), Best Actress (Ritika Singh). In addition, the film won three awards each at the Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, IIFA Utsavam Awards and SIIMA Awards. The film was later remade by Kongara herself in Telugu language as Guru (2017) with several members of the cast reprising their respective roles and Venkatesh playing Madhavan's role.
Plot
Prabhu Selvaraj/Aditya "Adi" Tomar is a talented yet failed boxer who, despite being very gifted in boxing, falls victim to the dirty politics in the boxing association, and loses his chance to go to 1996 Summer Olympics. 15 years later, he is a government coach for the national women's boxing training academy but is always extremely angry with the lethargic attitude of boxers and frustrated with the partiality in selection. Due to his constant rift with the association head Dev Khatri, he is falsely charged with sexual harassment in Delhi and gets transferred to Chennai to identify and develop new women boxers. Despite the very poor infrastructure, Prabhu/Adi manages to find natural talent in a roadside fish seller named Ezhil Madhi, who he notices while she is thrashing the judges during her elder sister Lakshmi "Lux"'s tournament.
Ignoring Lux who has been boxing for eight years to get a sports quota government job, Prabhu/Adi offers to pay and train Madhi for a few hours daily. Unfortunately, the two do not get along due to Prabhu/Adi's ruthless training methods and Madhi's aggressive nature. As a result, Madhi intentionally loses a local match. Prabhu/Adi later asks Lux and Madhi's parents, Saamikannu and Damayanthi, to send them to stay in a hostel with him so that their daughters can work hard on training. Madhi misunderstands him but later regrets it when she finds out that Prabhu/Adi has sold his beloved bike to buy new training equipment for her. Madhi then starts training with Prabhu/Adi and develops feelings for him. On the day of a qualifying match, she reveals her feelings to Prabhu/Adi, but he promptly rejects her. During the warm-up before the match, a now jealous Lux injures Madhi's hand, causing Madhi to lose the chance to the Olympics. Angry, Prabhu/Adi thinks that Madhi lost intentionally again and throws her out of training camp.
Dev takes advantage of the situation by calling Madhi to Delhi for a cultural exchange tournament and makes her fight with a heavyweight Russian boxer, who knocks out Madhi in 30 seconds. A demotivated Madhi is then approached by Dev with an indecent proposal, to which she reacts by injuring him. Dev takes revenge by getting her arrested on false theft charges. Prabhu/Adi comes to the rescue and bails her out. He later takes Madhi to Delhi to get her a wild-card entry into the World Boxing Championship, to be held in Goa, two months later. Many people in the association, including Lux, accuse Madhi of offering sexual favours to Prabhu/Adi. Ignoring all the accusations, Madhi works hard, enters the tournament representing India and goes on to win the semifinal.