Love Birds is a 1996 Indian Tamil-language romantic drama film directed by P. Vasu. The film stars Prabhu Deva and Nagma with Raja, Vadivelu and Sarath Babu playing other pivotal roles. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman and was highly successful. The film was released on 15 January 1996 and had an below average performance commercially.[1] It is a remake of the 1986 Kannada film Ratha Sapthami for which Vasu was the co-screenwriter.[2][3]
Mridula (Nagma) and Arun (Prabhu Deva) fall in love while studying in the college owned by Mridula's (single) father, an extremely wealthy man. Arun, however, comes from a poor family with a single mother and younger sister. As a favour to Arun, Mridula's father arranges for Arun's sister to get married and pays for her wedding expenses, After that wedding, Arun and Mridula get into a car accident and Mridula wakes up from a long coma only to be told by her father that Arun died in the accident. A devastated Mridula is unable to get over his absence, and her father is advised by her doctors to bring her to a place where Arun's memories will not plague her. Her father takes her to London to stay in his friend's house. Before long, Mridula starts seeing Arun in strange visions. Meanwhile, Mridula's father arranges for her to get married to his friend's son Mano (Raja), a young man attracted to her. Unable to accept this arrangement, she runs away to London Town where she meets David who looks exactly like Arun. She follows him and finds out where he lives and works. Whenever she tries to talk to him, he denies his relationship with her and says he doesn't know her. However, she later finds out that her father, unable to accept a poor man to become his son-in-law, had used the fact that he had helped with Arun's sister's marriage as a reason for Arun to return the favour by forgetting his daughter. So Arun had moved to London and changed his name in an attempt to forget about Mridula's. But after meeting and talking with Mridula several times, he reveals this. When Mridula's father finds this out, he hires thugs to kill him but Arun narrowly escapes. In the end, after being advised by his friend and Mano, and seeing his distraught daughter, he realises his mistake and arranges for the lovebirds to reunite.
Vijay Sethupathi (uncredited) as an audience member in Cultural Competition[4]
Production
Prabhu Deva was signed to work on the film after working in Shankar's 1994 hit Kaadhalan, and his pair from that film, Nagma, was also signed on. British Indian musician Apache Indian was also signed on to sing and dance for a music video in the film.[5]
The film was predominantly shot across London, with scenes also canned at Buckingham Palace and at a Hilton Hotel. The producers had earlier location scouted in the city and took music director, A. R. Rahman along to get a feel of the city.[6]
Initially, actress Sridevi was signed to work on the film but eventually walked off due to family commitments.
All lyrics are written by Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry.
Telugu
No.
Title
Singer(s)
Length
1.
"Come On Come On"
Mano
5:17
2.
"Manasuga Manasuga"
K. S. Chitra, Hariharan
7:09
3.
"Repe Lokam"
Unnikrishnan, Sujatha Mohan
7:25
4.
"No Problem"
Apache Indian, A. R. Rahman
6:10
5.
"Samba Samba"
Aslam Mustafa
5:32
Total length:
31:34
Release and reception
The film opened in January 1996. The film opened days earlier in Malaysia than India and was shown across 27 theatres in the country, a figure only usually exceeded for Tamil films starring Rajinikanth, and this mirrors the large release the film received.[6] K. Vijiyan of New Straits Times gave a positive review saying, "This movie seems made for courting couples, especially those who are facing problems with disapproving parents" and added that "strong dialogue makes the film rise slight above the ordinary".[6]Kalki was more critical, calling it yet another blowback for Prabhu Deva.[10]The Hindu wrote "To bank on the Kathalan team of Prabhu Deva and Nagma to deliver the goods without a powerful story to back their effort has cost Pyramid Films International, the makers of Love Birds, dearly despite shooting most part of the second half in England. Experienced director P. Vasu has written the story, dialogue, screenplay and somehow he is not able to infuse his usual sentiment oriented touches because the scope is very minimal in the plot" but praised Rahman's music and Sekar's cinematography.[11]Love Birds became an average grosser at the box office but was a little better than Prabhu Deva's next, Mr. Romeo. The actor thus had to go through a slump in his film career.[12]
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