New (film)

New
Directed by	S. J. Surya
Produced by	S. J. Surya
Written by	S. J. Surya
Starring	S. J. Surya Simran Manivannan Devayani
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Cinematography	K. V. Guhan
Edited by	Anthony
Production company	Annai Mary Madha Creations
Release date	9 July 2004
Running time	167 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Box office	₹11.2 crore (equivalent to ₹32 crore or US$4.5 million in 2019)

New is a 2004 Indian Tamil-language fantasy comedy film directed, written and produced by S. J. Surya, who also features in the lead role alongside Simran. Kiran Rathod and Devayani play supporting roles, while A. R. Rahman composes the music. New is about an 8-year-old boy who is turned into a 28-year-old man by a scientist. New was simultaneously shot in Telugu as Naani with Mahesh Babu and Ameesha Patel. The movie's plot is adapted from the 1988 Hollywood Tom Hanks starrer Big.

Plot

Pappu is a mischievous eight-year-old boy who always troubles his mother Indira. He frequently gets scoldings due to his bed-wetting habit despite being an eight year old. Pappu's elder brother Kishore plans to watch a porn movie with his friends in his room to which he insists on joining them. When Kishore refuses and gets rid of him, Pappu cuts off the power out of anger creating a short circuit at home. Indira scolds for his dangerous mischief and shouts at her husband for not stopping with one child as Pappu is troubling her a lot and to throw him away forever. Distraught, Pappu runs away from home to end his life near a river, but is stopped by a man who takes him to his place. The man introduces himself as a scientist who has his own laboratory. He insists Pappu to take a medicine invented by him which will transform a boy to a fully grown man. Pappu agrees and the scientist transforms him into a young man. Pappu starts to live as a young man physically but he is childlike psychologically. The only person other than a scientist who knows the truth is his child classmate friend.

Now an adult, Pappu goes for an interview in a toy manufacturing company under the name of Vichu. The owner interviewing him demands that he empatize children to understand their taste. Since Pappu/Vichu is a child he grabs the job easily. Vichu is diverted to the daughter of the owner, Priya, whom Pappu/Vichu helped her to her feet at an amusement park before. She is surprised and happy to see him in her company and love blossoms between them. The Priya-Vichu intimacy creates a jealousy for Raj, another employee in the company who intends to woo her and humiliate Vichu. Pappu/Vichu meets Kishore as an anonymous man and learns that his mother is very depressed and fell sick following her son's disappearance. She laments for being so strict with him which she had done for his well being. Pappu realizes his mother's love and goes to the scientist to revert him to his younger self. The scientist transforms Pappu into his younger self and he reconciles with his mother. But again at night, he changes back to a young man and he immediately rushes to the scientist who does not know what had gone wrong and both of them are shocked at Pappu's mishap.

Pappu now lives as an eight-year-old boy during daytime and as a twenty-eight-year man during the night. Priya expresses her love to him but Pappu/Vichu tells her to love a man suitable for her age, but reciprocates his love upon the scientist's coercion. One day, Priya tells him to accompany for a matinee show, to which he rejects due to his transformation mishap. Pappu's mother befriends Priya as they are neighbours and Priya likes small boy Pappu. Priya gets angry on Vichu's absence. She finally decides to marry him. Raj kidnaps Vichu on the day of marriage but he changes to Pappu during the daytime. The kidnappers release him as they misunderstand of kidnapping a child. Pappu transforms to Vichu and marries Priya at evening time (Hindu marriages take place usually at mornings). Pappu somehow manages his mother by disappearing during nights. Priya longs for a child, so they have sex. Vichu/Pappu meets his mother and understands the difficulties of pregnancy, prompting him to take care of his wife with full affection. Pappu's child friend demands to spend time and come to play with him but Pappu refuses as has got the tight schedule as a son, as an employee, and as a husband. His friends get angry and reveal the truth to Priya and is shocked to hear that she is bearing the child of a child. Priya argues with Pappu, during which he transforms to his older self in front of her eyes. Vichu reveals that he loves her more than anything else in this world. Priya now gets into labour pain and Vichu takes her to the hospital. But on the way Vichu is stopped by Raj's men seeking revenge. Vichu fights them and admits her in the hospital. Everybody now comes to know the truth about Pappu and Priya gives birth to Pappu's son and she is upset on her fate of being a child's wife.

Twenty years pass by. Now Pappu is a real young man of twenty-eight years old. He still lives with Priya as her husband. He goes inside his room as young man and comes out as a forty-eight-year-old man who is now husband of forty-year-old Priya and father of a twenty-year-old son who looks like him. Pappu calls the scientist to find if he had found the remedy for his transformation to which he negates.

Cast

• S. J. Surya as Pappu (Viswanath aka Vichu)/Pappu's son
• Simran as Priya
• Kiran Rathod as Sivagami Maami
• Devayani as Indira, Pappu's mother
• Aishwarya as Seema, Priya's friend
• Nassar as Priya's father
• Manivannan as Scientist aka Science
• Karunas as Vishwanath aka X
• Janagaraj as Doctor
• Brahmanandam as Sathyam
• Ali as Siruthai
• Rajkumar as Raj, Sathyam's son
• Ravi Mariya as in a special appearance as a teacher

Production

The film was first announced by S. J. Surya in 2000, where he reported that Ajith Kumar and Jyothika would play the lead roles in the film, with Kareena Kapoor in a guest appearance. Surya noted that script-writing began in 2001, while production with the final cast began in 2002.

Release

The film was given an "A" certificate (adult rating) by the Indian Censor Board. New sold almost 4 million tickets worldwide. It opened well grossing ₹1.12 crore from 120 screens on Day One. A critic from The Hindu claimed that "belonging to a genre that is rare to our cinema, "New" however, gets bogged down in a mire of duets and double entenders", but hinted at potential success citing that director "seems to have hit the bull's eye."

Controversy

Women activists in the state of Tamil Nadu demanded a ban on a film after release, which they say contained obscene sex scenes. S. J. Surya responded by claiming that the sex scenes are there because the story line requires them and described his film as "fiction laced with sex and comedy".

In August 2005, the Madras High Court revoked the censor certificate for the film and directed the Chennai Commissioner of Police to investigate two criminal complaints registered against S. J. Surya. They ruled that the film did not provide a "clean and healthy entertainment" and that it would be failing in its duty if it did not revoke the censor certificate of the film, claiming it originally attained an "A" certificate "under questionable circumstances". Surya was arrested by city police on 22 August 2005 in connection for allegedly throwing a mobile phone at a woman censor board official in a fit of anger during the post-production of the film. According to the complainant, Vanathy Srinivasan, Surya was denied permission to add the "Kumbakonam" song to the film due to excessively obscene scenes and as a result he allegedly threw a mobile phone at her. He was late released without charge. A fresh case was launched in March 2006, with the Censor Board filing a complaint against Surya for using stills from scenes that were deleted from the film, with a poster which showed S.J. Surya resting on Simran's cleavage resurfacing. He was subsequently arrested for the second time before being released.

Music

New
File:New-Tamil-Film-AlbumArt.jpg
Soundtrack album by A. R. Rahman
Released	20 March 2004 (India)
Recorded	Panchathan Record Inn
Genre	Film soundtrack
Length	36:54
Label	New Music Classic Audio Anantham Audio Lahari Music Ayngaran Music
Producer	A. R. Rahman
A. R. Rahman chronology
Aayutha Ezhuthu (2004) New (2004) Naani (2004)

The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman. In an interview in 2001, Surya earlier stated that Deva had composed ten songs for the film, but he was later replaced by Rahman. director requested Rahman to remix the 1964 hit Tamil song "Thottal Poo Malarum" from the movie Padagotti but Rahman was not happy with the idea and next day he came up with completely new and fresh tune.

Track listing
No.	Title	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"New New"	Blaaze, Karthik, Vijay Prakash, Sunitha Sarathy, Tanvi Shah	4:33
2.	"Sakkarai"	S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Sujatha Mohan	5:53
3.	"Thootal Poo Malarum"	Hariharan, Harini	5:34
4.	"Kalayil Thinamum"	Unnikrishnan, Sadhana Sargam	4:24
5.	"If You Wanna"	Chinmayee, Anupama, Aparna	4:18
6.	"Spiderman"	Kunal Ganjawala, Sadhana Sargam	5:59
7.	"Kumbakonam"	Nithyasree Mahadevan, Manikka Vinayagam	6:12
Total length:			36:54

Remakes

It was Remade in Hindi again as Aao Wish Karein which was both produced and starring Aftab Shivdasani while Simran's role was done by Aamna Shariff and Manivannan's and Devayani's role was done by Johny Lever and Rati Agnihotri respectively.

External links

• New on IMDb