Irudhi Suttru (English: Final Round), titled Saala Khadoos
(English: The Snob) in Hindi, is a 2016 Indian Tamil-Hindi sports drama film
written and directed by Sudha Kongara. Simultaneously shot in Tamil and Hindi,
the film features R. Madhavan in the leading role as a boxing coach, with
newcomer Ritika Singh as an aspiring boxer
. Both versions are produced by S.
Sashikanth for Y NOT Studios and UTV Motion Pictures, while C. V. Kumar's
Thirukumaran Entertainment co-produces the Tamil version and Madhavan's
Tricolour Films with Rajkumar Hirani present the Hindi version respectively.
Featuring music composed by Santhosh Narayanan, the film has cinematography by
Sivakumar Vijayan and editing by Sathish Suriya. After beginning pre-production
works in early 2013, the film began shoot in July 2014 and was shot within
fifty days. Both Irudhi Suttru and Saala Khadoos opened on 29 January 2016.
Prabhu Selvaraj (Tamil version)/Adi Tomar (Hindi version)
(R. Madhavan) is a failed boxer, who despite being very talented, fell victim
to the dirty politics in the boxing association. Ten years later, he is a coach
for women's boxing teams but is extremely angry and frustrated with the
partiality in selection. Due to his rift with the association head Dev Khatri
(Zakir Hussain), he is falsely charged for sexual harassment and transferred to
Chennai. Despite the very poor infrastructure, Prabhu manages to find talent in
a road side fish seller Madhi (Ritika Singh), who he notices while thrashing
the judges during her sister's tournament.
Ignoring Madhi's elder sister Luxmi (Mumtaz Sorcar) who has
been boxing for 8 years, Prabhu offers to train Madhi for few hours daily. But
the two don't get along, due to Prabhu's ruthless training methods and Madhi's
aggressive nature. As a result, Madhi intentionally loses a local level match.
Prabhu later asks Luxmi and Madhi's parents, Saamikannu (Kaali Venkat) and
Damayanthi (Baljinder Kaur), to send them to stay in hostel with him, so their
daughters can work hard on training. Madhi misunderstands him, but later
regrets when she finds out that Prabhu has sold his bike to buy new training
equipment for her. Madhi then dedicatedly starts training with Prabhu and develops
feelings for him. On a day of a qualifying match, she reveals her feelings to
Prabhu, and he promptly rejects her. During the warm-up before the match, a now
jealous Luxmi injures Madhi's hand, causing Madhi to lose. Angry Prabhu 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 heavy
weight Russian boxer, who knocks out Madhi in a few seconds. 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 for false theft
charges.
Prabhu comes to the rescue and bails her out. He later takes
Madhi to Delhi to get her wild card entry into World Boxing Championship. Many
people in the association including Luxmi, accuse Madhi of offering sexual
favors to Prabhu. Ignoring all the accusations Madhi works hard and goes on to
win the semi-final. On the day of finals, Dev removes Madhi's name from the
list and asks Prabhu to resign immediately, if he wants to see Madhi in final.
Madhi gets to fight in the final round but is dejected after learning about
Prabhu's resignation. She kept on losing points in early rounds and gets badly
injured, before Prabhu shows up at the stadium and indicates her to attack her
opponent's arms to make her weak. Madhi follows the game plan and knocks out
the opponent. Dev quickly jumps in the ring to take the credit of training
Madhi, but she punches him and runs to Prabhu. Madhi and Prabhu hug each other,
showing emotional reunion of a coach and student.
Varun Manian's Radiance Media initially agreed to distribute
the Tamil version of the film, collaborating with Y NOT Studios and
Thirukumaran Entertainment, but later opted out of the agreement. The Hindi
version was jointly distributed by Rajkumar Hirani's production house and
Madhavan's Tricolour Films, for which the film is the first project. A teaser
trailer for the Hindi version was attached to the theatrical release of
Rajkumar Hirani's PK, while the Tamil version's teaser was also released with
Prabhu Solomon's Kayal in December 2014. During the period of post-production
work throughout 2015, Madhavan and Hirani held several screenings of the film
to select audiences in order to observe opinions and gather feedback.Promotions
for the film began again in late November 2015, when UTV Motion Pictures
announced that they would also be a part of the production and would distribute
the film alongside the other production houses. The trailer of the Hindi
version Saala Khadoos released on 15 December 2015, while a differently edited
Tamil version was released two days later. The trailers received widespread
critical acclaim and were promoted by several members of the Indian film
industry.
In early January 2016, the film began their marketing
campaign with the makers travelling to Madurai and Coimbatore for promotions,
after launching the Tamil version of the soundtrack in Chennai.With a publicity
budget of 9 crore rupees, the promotions were described by The Hindu to be
"unlike other film promotions in the South", considering that most
film teams in the Tamil film industry do not usually tour around the state
publicising their project.During his time in Coimbatore, Madhavan visited a
college and delivered a motivational speech, while he also made several
television appearances for special shows to be broadcast on Pongal and Republic
Day. The team travelled extensively between Mumbai and Chennai to promote the
film, while a further trailer for the Tamil version was cut and released ten days
before the film opened.Before the release of the film, the team held several
screenings to select Hindi and Tamil audiences and edited the film accordingly
to the taste of the audiences. The team also held two première shows in Hindi
and Tamil for the film industry, in the week leading up to the film's release.
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