Valimai (2022)

Interesting facts

Valimai (transl. Strength) is a 2022 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by H. Vinoth. It is produced by Boney Kapoor under Bayview Projects LLP in association with Zee Studios, as co-producer and distributor. The film stars Ajith Kumar, Karthikeya, Huma Qureshi and Gurbani Judge. The film score is composed by Ghibran and the songs are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The cinematography is performed by Nirav Shah and the editing handled by Vijay Velukutty. It revolves around Arjun, a police officer, who is assigned to track down a group of outlaw bikers following their involvement in heinous crimes.

Production

Soon after the release of director H. Vinoth's second film Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (2017), he approached actor Ajith Kumar. However, Ajith declined the project and asked the director to work on the Tamil remake of the 2016 Hindi film Pink titled as Nerkonda Paarvai. In January 2019, Boney Kapoor announced the second collaboration with Ajith Kumar and director Vinoth for another Tamil film, titled as Thala 60.

A formal launch ceremony for the film was held on 18 October 2019, at the office of Kapoor's production house. The makers also announced the title of the film as Valimai. Yuvan Shankar Raja was hired as the film's music director, and Nirav Shah was confirmed as the cinematographer. Art director Thota Tharani was reported to join the film's technical crew, but was replaced by K. Kathir.

On the release of the trailer glimpse on 23 September 2021, many cinephiles noted about the storyline revolving around the Satan's Slaves Motorcycle Club, which was founded in Shipley in the mid-1960s, and later spread on to various countries including Germany, North America, Scotland and Australia.

In an interview with Ananda Vikatan, Vinoth stated that he had partially re-written the script before the resumption of the film's shooting, being halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He stated that some of the actors were hesitant to shoot during the pandemic and the location owners denied permission to shoot on the sets that were constructed in the pre-pandemic times.

In an interview with Gopinath Rajendran of Cinema Express, Vinoth had stated that Ajith's character is modelled on a real life racer-turned-police officer. He said, "When Jayalalithaa ma'am was the Chief Minister, a bike racer was made an SI directly. We have taken that as an inspiration for this character, who is an ex-racing professional turned cop".

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