After director Ramesh Subramaniam completed the script of Vil Ambu , a friend told him about the ‘Six degrees of separation’ theory. “According to this theory, everything is six or fewer steps away. In other words, a connection can be made between two persons in a maximum of six steps,” says Ramesh. But what his friend didn’t know was that Ramesh had already incorporated this very theory in Vil Ambu ’s script. The film is about two people (played by Sree and Harish Kalyan) from the same city, who despite being unknown to each other, are connected through their actions. “The audience will know what is about to happen to the other person well before they know it themselves. The screenplay will really draw you into this movie,” promises Ramesh, who has earlier assisted director Samuthirakani.
About his role, Sree says, “I play Karthi, a youngster from the slums, who does petty jobs to survive.” While he played a similar role in one of his previous films, Vazhakku Enn 18/9 , he mentions that the treatment here is quite different. “Scripts like these don’t often come my way,” he says. “I just listened to a minute-long synopsis of the story before deciding to do the role. I call this a ‘high concept’ script, where even fantasy elements are handled in a realistic way.”
The other lead actor in the film, Harish Kalyan, explains that he saw the script evolve through several phases. “At one point, I wasn’t sure which character to opt for, but eventually, I ended up with Arul, a middle-class youngster, whose dad wants him to take up a lucrative IT job. But Arul’s only passionate about photography,” he says.
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Explaining the significance of the title, Sree says, “Depending on the situation, the lead characters change from being a bow to an arrow. Sometimes, the character is even both.” Actress Samskruthy Shenoy plays his girlfriend in this film. “Her character has a direct bearing on what Karthi does in his life, and how he gets connected to the other camp.”
We ask the director if the two protagonists eventually meet at all. “Well, let’s just say that the arrow needs a bow to meet its target,” he answers, cryptically.