Dheena-The Making of THALA

In 2001, Ajith played a movie called Dheena, directed by debutant director A R Murugadoss,. Dheena was the first ever Action flick he tried and acted alonside with Veteran Actor Suresh Gopi & Actress Laila. This movie had song called “ Vatikuchi pathi kadthu da” during a costar shall say “ THALA Erukkum pothu Vaal ada Kudathu, Nee Adu Thala” .(menaing a co- artist shall not pretend in the presence of a prominent star). This song was extremely popular and since the word Thala( Meaning leader/ the group lead) was catchy and from then on the fans started calling him , THE THALA. This word become so popular that even print and television medias started referring him as THALA and this name has been a house hold referring only AJIT KUMAR. Then Thala acted a lot of action movies like Magnum Opus movie CITIZEN, RED. During this period he was also concentrating in romantic entertainers like Poovellam un VASAM & RAJA.

This is A. R. Murugadoss 1st film. Ajith plays the title role of Dheena. Suresh Gopi stars in the film as Ajith's older brother. Film got a mass opening every where and ran for 175 days in 7 theatres in chennai.

Dheenadayalan(Ajith) is the brother of the local dada Adikesavan(Suresh Gopi). He is eternally grateful for this and lives solely to do Adikesavan's bidding, no questions asked. Dheena learns that his sister(Divya) is in love with a local boy but Adikesavan, who thinks the boy is harassing their sister, goes after him. Things turn tragic when this results in the death of their sister. Adikesavan swears revenge and orders Dheena to eliminate the boy's family. But Dheena, who knows that the boy is innocent and also loves the boy's sister(Laila), refuses. This pits him against the brother he loves.