Ko
Theatrical Poster
Directed by	K. V. Anand
Produced by	Elred Kumar Jayaraman
Written by	K. V. Anand Subha
Starring	Jiiva Karthika Nair
Music by	Harris Jayaraj
Cinematography	Richard M. Nathan
Editing by	Anthony
Studio	R. S. Infotainment
Distributed by	Red Giant Movies
Release date(s)	22 April 2011 (2011-04-22)
Running time	165 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	14 crore[1][2]

Ko (Translation: King) is a 2011 Indian Tamil political thriller film directed by K. V. Anand, starring Jiiva, Ajmal Ameer, Karthika Nair and Piaa Bajpai. The film was released on 22 April 2011 to mostly positive reviews,^[3] and was dubbed into Telugu as Rangam as well.

The film's plot outline is inspired from the 2009 film State of Play.^[4][5] Based on an online poll conducted by The Times of India, it won the Best Film Award for 2011.^[6]

Plot [edit]

The film begins with Ashwin Kumar (Jiiva), a young, energetic photojournalist working for the private newspaper Dina Anjal, witnessing Naxalites robbing a local bank. He chases them and manages to click photos of the robbers. When he tries to escape, he is stopped by a young woman Renuka ‘Renu’ (Karthika Nair) who assumes he is the culprit and helps the robbers to take his camera. However, he is able to secure the memory card of the camera. The police catch him, and to prove that he is a press photographer he shows the photos to the them, who identify everyone except the gang leader (whose face is covered by a mask). At his office, he again meets Renuka, who has newly joined as Article Editor. Saraswathi ‘Saro’ (Piaa Bajpai) also works in his office and has feelings for Ashwin, who does not reciprocate.

Settled in her new job, Renuka writes a cover story about a politician Aalavandhan (Kota Srinivasa Rao), describing his attempt to marry a minor. Enraged by this, Aalavandhan barges into the newspaper office and shouts at Renuka. The audio recording of her interview disappears (courtsey Aalavandhan), and she is fired from her job for falsified reporting. Ashwin later risks his life to capture the pictures of Aalavandhan who actually engages in child marriage in a temple at midnight. Later the story with the photos is printed in their newspaper and this makes Renuka to fall in love with him, which Ashwin reciprocates. Saro is initially jealous of the love between Ashwin and Renuka, but later accepts it and gets over Ashwin.

Meanwhile, Vasanthan Perumal (Ajmal Ameer), a recent graduate and engineer, strives hard to enter the politics by contesting the upcoming election. He is contesting against more experienced politicians who capture the people by giving freebies and money. No one cares about Vasanthan and his team of graduates, who promise a healthy government to people. Their party name is 'Siragugal' (feathers). Ashwin and Renuka find out about Vasanthan's election campaign, and they and the entire Dina Anjal team extend their support to the campaign, covering it extensively, much to the chagrin of Aalavandhan and the Chief Minister Yogeswaran 'Yogi' (Prakash Raj).

One night, Vasanthan's party organises an election campaign meeting. Ashwin, photographing the event, receives a text message from Saro that states there is a bomb underneath the stage where Vasanthan is speaking. Ashwin manages to save Vasanthan just before the bomb explodes. Later, Ashwin finds Saro fatally wounded near the blast site. Saro struggles to tell something to Ashwin and Renuka before she dies. Ashwin, through a video clip recorded by another photographer, finds out that Saro was intentionally killed by someone. He later notices a resemblance between the leader of the bank robbery and this unknown killer, concluding that the Naxalite leader killed Saro.

A few days later, Renuka notices that Vasanthan's photo in their newspaper was cut from a college class photo, where Ashwin is also present. Confronted by Renuka, Ashwin tells her that he and Vasanthan studied in the same college and were best friends. He also tells her that he is happy for Vasanthan's success and is wholeheartedly supporting his election campaign.

In the election, Vasanthan's party wins by a huge majority and Vasanthan becomes the Chief Minister. He orders the release of 20 naxals on Republic Day, citing humanity. Shocked on hearing this news, Ashwin rushes to the secretariat to meet Vasanthan. In Vasanthan's office, Ashwin notices that the Naxalite leader who killed Saro is there, talking with Vasanthan. Ashwin airs his grievances to Vasanthan, who ignores him. Ashwin then follows the leader to his hideout. At the same time, Vasanthan orders the Tamil Nadu Police to go kill the Naxals at their hideout and the Police Commandos surround the perimeter of that place. Ashwin, already at the hideout, confronts the Naxalite leader, whose name is Kadhir (Bose Venkat) and finds out from him that Vasanthan had made a deal with the Naxalites to help him win the election. They orchestrated events such as the burning of a hut and saving the woman in that hut (who was also a Naxalite) in order to win people's sympathy. In the same vein, they had planted a bomb on the stage where Vasanthan was speaking during his meeting. Saro had found out the truth about Vasanthan, but was fatally assaulted by him so that she does not reveal his character and intentions to anybody. Ashwin realises that Saro had tried to warn him and Renuka about Vasanthan's true character before dying and also that now Vasanthan is double-crossing the Naxalites and is planning to kill them as a show of achievement. Ashwin records this confession using his mobile phone camera and sends it to Renuka, who plans to publish this story in their newspaper. Vasanthan then arrives and kills Kadhir. He also tries to kill Ashwin. However, Ashwin triggers a bomb there which explodes, killing Vasanthan, while Ashwin manages to escape.

Meanwhile, Vasanthan's party members arrive at the hideout on hearing the news that Vasanthan had died. Seeing their innocence, Ashwin forces Renuka not to reveal the truth about Vasanthan because his party members would get into serious trouble and lose their seats just for supporting Vasanthan. They did not know about Vasanthan's true character and intentions and supported him, believing his false claims of a 'healthy government'. Instead Renuka publishes an article saying that Vasanthan had sacrificed his life fighting the Naxalites and died as a martyr.

The film ends with Ashwin and Renuka submitting their resignations to the Chief Editor for falsified reporting, but he rejects their resignations and tells them to cover the upcoming election.

Cast [edit]

• Jiiva as Ashwin Kumar, the protagonist
• Karthika Nair as Renuka Ashwin"Renu",Ashwin's love interest
• Ajmal Ameer as Vasanthan Perumal, the main antagonist
• Piaa Bajpai as Saraswathi "Saro", Ashwin and Renuka's colleague
• Prakash Raj as Yogeswaran "Yogi", the Chief minister
• Kota Srinivasa Rao as Aalavandhan, the secondary antagonist
• Sona Heiden as Sumitha Kothari
• D. Suresh as Suresh
• Pattimandram Raja as Jayaraman, Ashwin's father
• Jegan as Chander
• Bose Venkat as Kadhir, the Naxalite group head
• Anthony as TV editor

Special appearances in song "Aga Naga"

• Suriya
• Abbas
• Adharvaa
• Anjali
• Anuja Iyer
• Bharath
• Ganesh Venkatraman
• Harris Jayaraj
• Jai
• Jayam Ravi
• John Vijay
• Kannan
• Karthi
• Krish
• Madhan Karky
• Narain
• Peter Hein
• Rima Kallingal
• Sanjana Singh
• M. Sasikumar
• Shiva
• Tamannaah

Production [edit]

Jiiva during the filming of Ko at Bergen

Casting [edit]

Initially the film was rumored to have Karthi in the lead. However, it was later officially announced that Silambarasan Rajendar would play the lead in the film,^[7] but was later replaced by Jiiva.^[8] The lead female role was initially supposed to be enacted by Tamannaah Bhatia, who was replaced by actress Radha's daughter, Karthika Nair.^[8] The trailer of this film was played during the screening of Manmadan Ambu and got a favourable response.^[9][10]

Filming [edit]

The film was shot on location in Chennai, Harbin in China as well as in Western Norway at Trolltunga, Stalheim, Bergen and Prekestolen,^[11] becoming the first Tamil film to be shot in Norway.

Remakes [edit]

The film is to be remade in Bengali as Kanamachi by notable Bengali director, Raj Chakraborty. It stars Ankush Hazra, Srabanti and Abir Chatterjee in the lead roles played by Jiiva, Karthika Nair and Ajmal Ameer respectively. The remake will be released on January 2013. It is also to be remade in Hindi cinema as Satyagraha, directed by Prakash Jha, with Ajay Devgn depicting Jiiva's role and Kareena Kapoor for Karthika's role.^[12]

Character Map of Remakes [edit]

Soundtrack [edit]

Ko
Soundtrack album by Harris Jayaraj
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Label	Sony Music
Harris Jayaraj chronology
Engeyum Kaadhal (2010) Ko (2011) Force (2011)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Behindwoods.com	[13]
Rediff	[14]

The soundtrack is scored by Harris Jayaraj, who had previously worked with Anand on Ayan.^[15] The composition of the songs took place in Macau. During Diwali 2010 a short teaser was released which featured the song "Enamo Aedho" which received a high response. Another song, "Aga Naga", featured special appearances by several Tamil film personalities, including composer Jayaraj (see under cast). The album was launched on 19 January 2011 in Chennai.^[16]

Telugu Tracklist [edit]

All Lyrics are Penned by Vanamali.

Critical response [edit]

The soundtrack received mixed to positive reviews. C. Karthik from Behindwoods.com gave 2.5/5 writing: "Overall, Harris has tried to re-create the Ayan magic in KV Anand's latest and has achieved it to an extent [...] There are a couple of songs that give bragging rights to Harris but the others fail to scale the same height. Ko is worth having in your personal collection!"^[13] Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff gave a 2/5 citing that "aside from the sweetly melodious Ennamo Edho, the other numbers are all mish-mashed versions of his earlier hits."^[14] Indiaglitz said "Ko's music is vivacious with different genres of romantic songs, hip hop and nevertheless even poetic."^[17]

Release [edit]

Ko released in nearly 230 theatres in Tamil Nadu, making it Jiiva's widest release.^[18] It is also being released in multiplexes across metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Vadodara with English subtitles to attract the non-Tamil audience.Ayngaran International released the movie on DVD and releasing soon on Blu-ray.

Critical reception [edit]

The film opened to positive reviews.^[19][20] The Hindu described the film as a "tale with a realistic twist" and praised Anand who "strikes gold with Ko. Blending the commercial with the realistic is a challenge, but K. V. Anand proves adept at it."^[21][22][23] The The Times of India gave three and a half citing: "With Ko, director Anand gives notice of his immense talent once again, making a movie that is all set to lord over the box office this summer".^[24][25] National Film Award-winning critic, Baradwaj Rangan wrote: "If someone wants to make a case for the abolishment of song and dance from our cinema, Ko would be Exhibit A." He also went on to state that Ko was "a series of big scenes with no transitions, no segues, no scenes that just stop to smell the scenery."^[26][27]

Box office [edit]

^[28] In Chennai, it collected 73.39 lakh in the opening weekend.^[29] After 9 weeks, it collected 7.99 crore in Chennai^[30][31] and declared as a hit by trade^[32] and completed 175-day run at the box office.^[33][34]

The Telugu version, Rangam was also declared successful, with distributors organized celebrations in Tirupati on its 100th day of theatrical run.^[35][36]

Awards [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Ko at the Internet Movie Database