Gautham Menon

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Gautham Menon
Image:Gautham.jpg
Born	February 25 1973 (1973-02-25) (age 36)
Occupation	Director

Gautham Menon (born in 25 February, 1973) is a tamil film director, who has helmed several successful films and has made stars out of actors such as Madhavan (Minnale) and Surya (Kaaka Kaaka). He also had huge success with Vettaiyadu Villaiyadu starring Kamal Haasan. He is qualified as a mechanical engineer from Mookamikai College in Keeranoor near Trichy.

[edit] Film career

He was an ad film maker, shooting various commercials after a good apprenticeship under noted filmmaker Rajiv Menon. He worked as an assistant director for Minsaara Kanavu. He started his own ad agency "Photon Factory" before moving to cinema.

His first film in Tamil was Minnale (2001), with Madhavan, Abbas and Reema Sen playing the lead roles. The film was a huge hit because of its young and peppy story, brilliant comic timing from the acclaimed comedians Vivek and DJ Ravi and also because of some new lilting music from debutante music director, Harris Jeyaraj which was subsequently remixed brilliantly by DJ Ravi.

Immediately Goutham got an offer to remake the film in Bollywood. He did so, retaining Madhavan as the hero and having Diya Mirza playing the female lead role. The film however did not taste success.

Gautham returned to Tamil cinema with another big hit in 2003. The film was Kaaka Kaaka, starring Surya, Jyothika and Jeevan. This was a "supercop" story and a love story at the same time, and became a trendsetter of sorts in the Indian film industry, owing to excellent technical work by cameraman R.D. Rajashekar and editor Anthony. He also had a cameo in the film as a senior police officer. Gautham again got offers from various quarters to remake the film. However he remade the film in Telugu, with Venkatesh in the lead.

Then came the icing on the cake. Gautham was invited by Kamal Hassan, icon of Indian cinema to make a film. Thus he started Vettaiyadu Villaiyadu. The unit faced a lot of problems. However they overcame all that and the film was released in August 2006. He plays a cameo dancing at the back in the song, Manjal Veiyil. DJ Ravi also plays a significant cameo role as a police detective who assists Kamal very ably. The film was a huge hit.

Gautham's Pachaikili Muthucharam with Sarath Kumar and Jyothika has opened well to positive reviews and Vaaranam Aayiram with Surya, Sameera Reddy and Divya has started rolling from April 16th.