# Mirugam

Mirugam (transl. Animal) is a 2007 Indian Tamil-language erotic drama film written and directed by Samy. The film stars debutant Aadhi and Padmapriya. The music was composed by Sabesh–Murali with editing by Suresh Urs and cinematography by Ramnath Shetty. The film was released on 14 December 2007.

## Plot

In a village near Ramnad, Ayyanar is a carefree villager who uses his muscles rather than his brain for any situation and behaves like an animal. He is a terror to the whole village as he is a womanizer, sleeps with sex workers, and rapes housewives. There is no woman in the village with whom he has not had an encounter. He beats up anyone, including his mother. He makes a living through his bull, which he hires out for its stud services.
During one of Ayyanar's visits to the local brothel, he rapes the queen sex worker Savithri but refuses to pay for her services. He sleeps with her multiple times and uses her in his sexual play. Once, he is seen playing cards on the outskirts of the neighbouring village, when the wife of a player comes and scolds him. Ayyanar, smitten by the wife, wins all the bets and gets the player drunk. He takes him to his home, gives the player's kids stolen chicken curry to eat outside, and silently rapes the player's wife.
One day, Ayyanar meets Alagamma, a tomboyish girl. Her beauty strikes him and he manages to marry her, but he treats her like one of his conquests. On the first night, he rapes her and continues with his sexual exploits. She silently tolerates all the sexual activities that he performs on her, but she soon changes her mind after knowing his past of him being a son of a prostitute, whose mother was raped and molested multiple times in front of him. He has seen her having sex with multiple men at the same time. He later killed the manager of the ring and escaped to Ramnad, where he was adopted.
Alagamma decides to change Ayyanar and bring him on the right path with love, sex, and affection. Fate takes a turn as Ayyanar is hauled in by the cops after a drunken fight, and he is sentenced to a year in jail. In jail, he gets addicted to drugs, using the same syringes and needles with other prisoners. He rapes two men in jail in front of other inmates. After coming out of jail, he returns to his old ways. He wants to kill his pregnant wife, whom he believes had an illicit relationship with her uncle, which he later learns is not true. Soon, he is infected with virus and later is afflicted by HIV/AIDS. The villagers ignore him, but his loyal and devoted wife stands by him. The film ends with Ayyanar dying of AIDS and his wife living with her uncle.

## Cast

* Aadhi as Ayyanar
* Padmapriya Janakiraman as Alagamma
* Ganja Karuppu as Idi Thangi
* Bhanu Chander
* Naren as Villager
* Sona Heiden as Savithri
* Lakshmiammal
* A. M. Karthikeyan
* Velmurugan

## Production

Samy, who was in search of a new actor for the film, spotted Aadhi, son of Telugu film director Ravi Raja Pinisetty at silambam classes and chose him to act. Many actresses, including Sneha, declined to be the lead actress before Padmapriya was cast.

## Controversies

During the final stages of filming, Samy slapped Padmapriya, allegedly because she could not perform to his satisfaction. In October 2007, the Nadigar Sangam imposed a one-year ban on him from directing films, following a complaint filed by Padmapriya, but the ban was lifted almost six months later due to lobbying by Samy, who alleged his other directorial venture Sarithiram was being delayed.
Blue Cross of India objected to the scene of jallikattu, citing animals were tortured and wrote a letter to the Central Board of Film Certification not to issue a clearance certificate; hence the board requested Samy to remove the scene to which he agreed.

## Soundtrack

The music was composed by Sabesh–Murali, with lyrics by Na. Muthukumar.

## Critical reception

Sify wrote "The film strikes a chord because the concern of the director to highlight the plight of an AIDSpatient in the post interval scenes is facetious. Throughout the film the director becomes more of a voyeur and dialogues loaded with sexual overtones. And surely Samy knows the difference between exploitation and cause-orientation". Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff.com wrote "Watch Mirugam for some realistically done rural fare. With all the dollops of sex, action, and messages, it harks back to the good old masala genre, spiced according to today's specifications."
Malini Mannath of Chennai Online wrote "A tighter reign on the narration would have brought in more clarity and focus to the film. Appreciable is the director's daring to take on such a theme. But the finesse is missing, the drector going overboard both in depicting Ayyanar's moral depravity and in the scenes of the backlash on him towards the later part where he is depicted as a victim of AIDS". S. R. Ashok Kumar of The Hindu wrote "The director of ‘Mirugam’ deserves to be commended for making a film with a message — eradication of AIDS. Padmapriya has chipped in with good work but with no other stars to boast, the film fails to make an impact".

## Accolades

Mirugam won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Film Portraying Woman in Good Light, Padmapriya won the Best Actress (Special Prize) award and Mahalakshmi Iyer won for Best Female Playback Singer.