Time (1999 film)

Time is a 1999 Indian Tamil-language romantic drama film directed by Geetha Krishna. The film stars Prabhu Deva, Simran and Radhika Chaudhari. It was released on 3 December 1999.

Production
The film marked the directorial debut of Geetha Krishna in Tamil, and began as a quadrilingual venture in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam. Prashanth was initially announced as the hero in the film as early as November 1997 when the film's launch took place. Prashanth started working for the film in Kodaikanal during October 1998 but later backed out, while Ajith Kumar also refused the film due to lack of time. After several delays, Prabhu Deva was subsequently selected to play the lead role and the film was shot only in Tamil. Two debutant actresses were announced to portray the lead female roles, Menaka Senail and Radhika Chaudhari, though the former was later replaced by Simran. Model Bobbu Poonai made his acting debut as the antagonist.

Music
The songs were composed by Ilaiyaraaja and lyrics were written by Palani Bharathi. To compose the songs, Ilaiyaraaja and Geetha Krishna went on a recce to Maldives and had longlisted thirty songs for the film, before picking six. For the Telugu version, the lyrics were written by Veturi and Vanamali. The song "Kadhal Neethana" later used as a background score in the 2022 film Love Today.

Reception
Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu wrote, "Two aspects of Time stand out – Ilaiyaraja's re-recording and M. V. Paneer's camera work. As for the rest, there isn't much to be said". K. N. Vijiyan of New Straits Times wrote the film has shades of Kadhal Kottai (1996), but "the story gets a little muddled in the end". Regarding the Telugu version, Grdiddaluru Gopalrao of Zamin Ryot wrote that this is not a typical love story and also praised the music and cinematography.