Billa (1980 film)

Billa
File:Billa 1980.jpg The film's logo
Directed by	R. Krishnamurthy
Produced by	K.Balaji
Starring	Rajinikanth Balaji Sripriya Reena Roy Major Sundarrajan R.S.Manohar Thengai Srinivasan S.A. Asokan
Music by	M.S. Viswanathan
Release date	January 24, 1980 (1980-01-24)
Running time	175 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Billa (Tamil: பில்லா) is a 1980 Tamil film produced by K.Balaji and directed by R.Krishnamurthy. The film stars Rajinikanth, Balaji, Thengai Srinivasan, Manorama, Sripriya, Reena Roy and Major Sundarrajan. This movie is extensively based on the Hindi film Don (1978), with changes made in the script to suit the Tamil audience. It is however unfortunate that almost no famous dialogue from Don was re-used in this film such as Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahin, namumkin hai (It is not hard to catch Don, it is impossible) since Rajinikanth's films are famous for their punch dialogues.

Plot

Billa (Rajinikanth) is the leader of an underworld gang. A deputy superintendent of police (Balaji) is tracking down Billa and in one of their confrontations the DSP wounds Billa, resulting in his death. The DSP then secretly holds a burying of Billa. After which the DSP remembers a person named Raju who looks like Billa, he then tracks that person down. The DSP requests Raju to impersonate Billa so that the DSP can take down the rest of Billa's gang, Raju requests that the DSP promises him that he will give a proper education to the children that he is looking after. But in an unexpected turn of events the DSP dies. The DSP is the only one who knows the truth about our impersonator who now finds himself in a life-threatening situation - hunted by both the cops and the real Billa's henchmen and to make matters worse, he then finds out that Interpol Officer is a crook and has taken the place of the real person. He is the one responsible for the DSP's murder. It's now a race to retrieve a the DSP's diary in which the DSP has documented his substitution of the real Billa.

Cast

Actor	Role
Rajinikanth	Billa and Raju
Balaji	DSP
Sripriya	Priya
Major Sundarrajan	Jagdesh Kumaran Santhanam
R.S.Manohar	Manohran
Thengai Srinivasan	GJ
S.A. Asokan
Reena Roy	Cameo appearance

Soundtrack

The soundtrack, consisting of 4 songs is composed by M.S. Viswanathan. The tracks My Name Is Billa and Veththalaya Pottendi were remixed by Yuvan Shankar Raja in the 2007 remake of Billa.

• My Name Is Billa - S.P. Balasubramaniam
• Iravum Pagalum - Malaysia Vasudevan, Vani Jayaram
• Veththalaya Pottendi - Malaysia Vasudevan
• Nattukulla Enakkoru - S.P. Balasubramaniam
• Ninnaithale Inikkum Sugame - L. R. Eswari

Reception

Like the original, this film was also very well received and became a cult classic. Interestingly, it was remade in 2007 with the same title and starred Ajith Kumar in the lead role after Don was remade in 2006 with the same title, starring Shahrukh Khan.