Love Birds
Title card
Directed by	P. Vasu
Written by	P. Vasu
Based on	Ratha Sapthami
Produced by	Pyramid Natarajan
Starring	Prabhu Deva Nagma
Cinematography	M. C. Sekar
Edited by	P. Mohanraj
Music by	A. R. Rahman
Production company	Pyramid Films
Release date	15 January 1996 (1996-01-15)
Running time	160 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Love Birds is a 1996 IndianTamil-languageromantic drama film directed byP. Vasu. The film starsPrabhu Deva andNagma withRaja. The film's score and soundtrack were composed byA. R. Rahman and was highly successful. The film was released on 15 January 1996 and had an below average performance commercially.^[1] It is a remake of the 1986Kannada filmRatha Sapthami for which Vasu was the co-screenwriter.^[2][3]

Mridula and Arun fall in love while studying in the college owned by Mridula's (single) father, a wealthy man. Arun, however, comes from a poor family with a single mother and younger sister. As a favour to Arun, Mridula's father arranges for Arun's sister to get married and pays for her wedding expenses. After the wedding, Arun and Mridula have a car accident and Mridula wakes up from a long coma only to be told by her father that Arun died in the accident. A devastated Mridula is unable to get over his absence, and her father is advised by her doctors to bring her to a place where Arun's memories will not plague her. Her father takes her to London to stay in his friend's house. Before long, Mridula sees Arun in strange visions. Meanwhile, Mridula's father arranges for her to marry his friend's son Mano, a young man attracted to her. Unable to accept this arrangement, she flees to London Town where she meets David, who looks exactly like Arun. She follows him and learns where he lives and works. Whenever she tries to talk to him, he denies his relationship with her and says he doesn't know her. However, she later discovers that her father, unable to accept a poor man to become his son-in-law, had used the fact that he had helped with Arun's sister's marriage as a reason for Arun to return the favour by forgetting his daughter. So Arun had moved to London and changed his name in an attempt to forget about Mridula's. But after meeting and talking with Mridula several times, he reveals this. When Mridula's father becomes aware, he hires thugs to kill him but Arun escapes. In the end, after being advised by his friend and Mano, and seeing his distraught daughter, he realises his mistake and arranges for the couple to reunite.

Prabhu Deva was signed to work on the film after working inShankar's 1994 hitKaadhalan, and his pair from that film,Nagma, was also signed on. British Indian musicianApache Indian was also signed on to sing and dance for a music video in the film.^[5]

The film was predominantly shot across London, with scenes also canned atBuckingham Palace and at aHilton Hotel. The producers had earlier location scouted in the city and took music director,A. R. Rahman along to get a feel of the city.^[6]

Initially, actressSridevi was signed to work on the film but eventually walked off due to family commitments.

The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics byVairamuthu for the original Tamil version, bySirivennela Seetharama Sastry for the Telugu version and byP. K. Mishra andMehboob for the Hindi version.^[7] The song "Malargaley" is set to theragaHamir Kalyani.^[8][9]

The film opened in January 1996. The film opened days earlier in Malaysia than India and was shown across 27 theatres in the country, a figure only usually exceeded for Tamil films starringRajinikanth, and this mirrors the large release the film received.^[6] K. Vijiyan ofNew Straits Times gave a positive review saying, "This movie seems made for courting couples, especially those who are facing problems with disapproving parents" and added that "strong dialogue makes the film rise slight above the ordinary".^[6]Kalki was more critical, calling it yet another blowback for Prabhu Deva.^[10]The Hindu wrote "To bank on theKathalan team of Prabhu Deva and Nagma to deliver the goods without a powerful story to back their effort has cost Pyramid Films International, the makers ofLove Birds, dearly despite shooting most part of the second half in England. Experienced director P. Vasu has written the story, dialogue, screenplay and somehow he is not able to infuse his usual sentiment oriented touches because the scope is very minimal in the plot" but praised Rahman's music and Sekar's cinematography.^[11]Love Birds became an average grosser at the box office but was a little better than Prabhu Deva's next,Mr. Romeo. The actor thus had to go through a slump in his film career.^[12]

• Love Birds atIMDb

• 1996 films
• 1996 Indian films
• 1990s Tamil-language films
• 1996 romantic drama films
• Films directed by P. Vasu
• Films scored by A. R. Rahman
• Films shot in London
• Indian romantic drama films
• Tamil remakes of Kannada films
• Tamil-language Indian films
• Tamil-language romantic drama films

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