We have seen assistant director M Saravanan work with A R Murugadoss on Ghajini and then come up with his own movie Journey (Engeyum Eppodhum in Tamil) last year. Now we have Manimaran, the former associate of director Vetrimaran, who brings us NH4 (dubbed into Telugu from the Tamil movie Udhayam NH4). He has worked in the industry for over ten years and was the assistant director on Polladhavan. While Vetrimaran has written the script and screenplay for NH4, Manimaran has directed the movie. But there is a story behind it. While the script was written, keeping Dhanush in mind, due to production issues, the movie was dropped. In 2012, it was kickstarted and Vetri introduced Manimaran. Starring Siddharth, Kay Kay and Ashrita Shetty, the movie is set to release this month and the director tells us more:
NH4 is about what happens on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. The story starts off in Bangalore and then the journey begins. It is a simple movie that is uniquely narrated. The love story and thriller revolves around four engineering students who travel to Bangalore, where Siddharth falls in love with a college girl, played by Ashrita Shetty.
We have two new faces. One is actor Kay Kay, and this is his first Tamil movie. We did not want a Tamil heroine because they all come with an image and people will guess the proceedings. Shetty is from Mumbai. Kay Kay will be playing the antagonist and was suggested by a lot of people in the industry.
Though this is my first film, I was not nervous. I have worked with the team before. I have worked with Vetrimaran (Polladhavan) and G V Prakash (Aadukalam) so the the technicians and others are known to me. My only challenge was to make Vetrimaran happy, since he has written the script. We did not have any differences and he did not sit me down and tell me how to go about the movie.
Siddharth became my assistant director for the movie. When he arrived at the shooting spot on day one, he came up to me and said he would rather be my assistant than the hero of the movie. That was very comforting and handling things on the set became easier. I cannot do a comedy or a romance. After you watch NH4, you will realise I am good at action and even in the future, I am going to stick to that. I am already working on my next project. I like realistic movies.