Kedi (2006 film)

Kedi is a 2006 Indian Tamil-language romantic crime thriller film written and directed by Jyothi Krishna. It stars Ravi Krishna, Ileana D'Cruz and Tamannaah Bhatia. The film marks the Tamil debut of D'Cruz and Bhatia, where the latter plays a character with negative shades and the former plays the love interest of Ravi Krishna. Ramesh Khanna, Atul Kulkarni, Adithya Menon, M. S. Bhaskar and Suman Setty play supporting roles. The film was released on 24 September 2006.

Plot
Raghu is a happy-go-lucky young man who is not serious about studies or life. He has a great time in college playing pranks with fellow students. His father dotes on him and so do his close friends. A new girl Priyanka joins his class, and she is the sister of Pughazhenthy, a powerful gangster-turned-minister. Priyanka lives a privileged life, and the college gets a facelift as her classroom is fitted with an AC, and the canteen gets a hip look.

Priyanka even manages to change the principal using her brother's influence, and she dislikes Raghu. Aarthi, a maid's daughter, studies in the same class, and she has a secret admiration towards Raghu. Seeing the way in which Priyanka treats him, Aarthi gives moral support and motivates Raghu to come above Priyanka, who is an all-rounder and best student in the university. This infuriates Priyanka who slowly wants him at any cost. Aarthi is blackmailed by a boy who takes her vulgar photos and he saves her from it. Priyanka decides to separate them, and creates photos with him.

Priyanka finally realises Raghu's love towards Aarthi, and she tries everything possible to separate them but Pughazhenthy wants Raghu to marry his sister. He angers Aarthi by kidnapping and electrifying her, yet she turns normal on seeing Raghu, but worsens when she sees him getting shot. In the end, Aarthi goes mental, which enrages Raghu, who vows revenge on Priyanka. He pretends to accept the marriage and marries Aarthi at the last minute. Raghu discovers that Priyanka even murdered her brother in order to live with Raghu. The film ends with Priyanka killing herself and Raghu burying Aarthi's chain at Priyanka's grave.

Production
The film was initially planned to be bilingual, with simultaneous shooting in Tamil and Telugu under the titles KD and Jadoo, respectively. A press meet for the Telugu version took place on 14 May 2006, but eventually, the film was released only in Tamil.

Music
After working with A. R. Rahman in his previous project Enakku 20 Unakku 18, Jyothi Krishna decided to work together with Yuvan Shankar Raja in this film. The soundtrack, released on 9 June 2006, consists of 8 tracks with lyrics written by Pa. Vijay, whilst director Perarasu and Kabilan wrote lyrics for each one song. Deva's brother Sabesh had sung one of the songs. Yuvan Shankar Raja would go on to reuse some of the background music in his next venture Billa and Vallavan.

Reception
A critic from Indiaglitz wrote "Jothikrishna has tried to stay away from run-of-the-mill action stuff. Has caught the pulse of youngsters well in rendering a youthful entertainer. A few scenes in the second half would attract womenfolk". A critic from Bizhat wrote "Jyothi Krishna and Ravi Krishna’s ambitious project Kedi starts off promisingly with some rapid fire editing. [..] But sadly the second half is too lengthy and lacks entertainment with an over-the-top 25 minutes climax that leaves you exhausted. Jyothi fails to accelerate the sluggish narrative, as the violent love story meanders on for nearly three hours". Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "The director shows a marked improvement, and a firmer grip on the medium this time, the narration smoother here. If only he hadn't let himself be confused and lose focus in the second half!" Shyam Balasubramanian of Rediff.com wrote, "The most prominent reasons to watch Kedi are Tamanna and Ileana. See it for them, if for nothing else".