Bigil

About the film

Bigil (transl. Whistle) is a 2019 Indian Tamil-language sports action drama film directed and co-written by Atlee and produced by AGS Entertainment. The film stars Vijay in the main dual lead role as father and son, alongside an ensemble cast of Nayanthara, Jackie Shroff, Vivek, Kathir, Daniel Balaji, Anandaraj, Yogi Babu, I. M. Vijayan, Arjan Bajwa, Indhuja Ravichandran, Reba Monica John, Amritha Aiyer, and Varsha Bollamma. It is the third collaboration of Vijay with Atlee after Theri (2016) and Mersal (2017). The film follows Michael "Bigil" Rayappan, a former footballer give up his dream and turned into a gangster after his father's death but ends up as coach of a women's football team after his friend is injured.

The film was officially announced in November 2018 under the tentative title Thalapathy 63, as it is Vijay's 63rd film and the official title was announced in June 2019.Principal photography commenced in January 2019. It was predominantly shot in Chennai, with a minor schedule in Delhi, and wrapped by mid-August. The film has music composed by A. R. Rahman, cinematography handled by G. K. Vishnu and editing by Ruben.

Plot

Michael is a gangster from Royapuram, Chennai who works to help his slum. He has a comical relationship with his girlfriend, Angel Aasirvatham, and a running feud with Daniel, a rival gangster. One night, Daniel attacks Michael and his close friend Kathir, who is the coach of the Tamil Nadu women's football team. Kathir is injured during the attack and becomes paralysed for a year. The team blamed Michael for his condition and ousted him. To allow the team to take part in the upcoming national championship in Delhi, Kathir requests the Tamil Nadu Football Association to replace him with his former teammate Bigil, who is actually Michael.

Seven years earlier, Michael was an aspiring footballer who, along with Kathir, played an important role in the Tamil Nadu football team's success. His father, Rayappan, is a crime boss who feuded with Daniel's father, Alex. Rayappan encourages Michael's passion for football, as he does not want him to end up in a life of crime. When Michael was unable to play for the Indian national team due to Rayappan's criminal record, Rayappan personally took up the matter with AIFF president J.K. Sharma and forcefully ensured that he included Michael and Kathir in the team's preliminary squad. However, Michael's career gets cut short just when he is about to leave for Delhi to attend the national team trials, as Rayappan was stabbed to death by Alex and Daniel. Michael kills Alex in front of Daniel and stays in Chennai to become the new leader of Rayappan's gang. Michael's absence caused the team to lose in the trials, which sent them back home. Kathir met Michael, who requested him to organise a women's football team, and they worked together by selecting the women who were struggling and poor, giving everything to them.

Back to the present, Michael confronts Daniel and attempts to kill him for the earlier attack, but the police intervene to arrest Daniel and imprison him. Michael later accepts Kathir's request to coach the Tamil Nadu women's team, and he returns to football before leaving for Delhi with Angel and the team. However, due to his criminal background, the women refuse to cooperate with him and even blame him for the team's opening loss to Manipur in the national championship. Dejected, Michael reaches out to Sharma to resign, but soon discovers that Sharma is targeting him in revenge for the humiliation that he had faced at the hands of Rayappan to allow him into the national team and was the one who sent armed assailants to attack Michael before the match.

Production

During the production of Sarkar (2018), it was reported that directors H. Vinoth, Hari, Mohan Raja and Perarasu will be roped in to helm Vijay's 63rd film, tentatively being titled Thalapathy 63. However, in August 2018, Atlee confirmed that he will direct Thalapathy 63, thereby marking his third collaboration with the actor after Theri (2016) and Mersal (2017). Speaking about this, in an interview with a radio channel, he stated that "the film would be bigger and better than the films of their previous associations", and also confirmed that he started working on the scripting process of the film. Archana Kalpathi, the creative producer of AGS Entertainment, had announced that they had acquired the rights for the production, marking the studio's first film with the actor.

The film was officially announced on 14 November 2018, with a puja ceremony being conducted to commence the launch. A. R. Rahman was reported to compose the music and original score for the film, collaborating with Vijay for the fifth time after Udhaya (2004), Azhagiya Tamil Magan (2007), Mersal and Sarkar, and with Atlee for the second time after Mersal. The technical crew consisted of cinematographer G. K. Vishnu, editor Ruben, art director T. Muthuraj, stunt director Anal Arasu, all of them were associated in Mersal, while Atlee's regular collaborator, S. Ramana Girivasan, wrote the dialogues for the film. The film was reported to be a sports action film with commercial elements.

By late-November 2018, art director Muthuraj began working on the construction of the sets at Binny Mills in Chennai. By early-December 2018, Atlee, Vishnu and Kalpathi went to Los Angeles for location scouting to shoot a significant portion of the film. Ajay Devgn's NY VFXWAALA was hired to supervise the visual effects. Vijay was reported to play the role of a sportsperson-turned-coach and for his role, he was trained under fitness expert Kannan Narayanan to gain few kilos for the role. He further undergone special training in football, under the guidance of popular sports coordinator, Aimee McDaniel, known for her work in films like Million Dollar Arm (2014), Pelé: Birth of a Legend (2016) and the web television series 13 Reasons Why (2017–2020). Additional sports choreography were done by former English footballer Justin Skinner. Coaching and physiotherapy were done by Nivetha and Kanaga Lakshmi, respectively. It was made on a budget of ₹180 crore (US$19 million), thereby being the production house's most expensive film up to that point.

Key details