SJ Suryah's sophomore directorial, Kushi, is all set for a re-release on September 25, as the film has completed 25 years since its release in 2000. Starring Vijay and Jyotika in lead roles, the film was commercially successful two decades ago, despite mixed criticisms. Over the years, the film has been received well and has also garnered immense repeat-watch value.
Back around the film's release, Vijay spoke about working with Jyotika and praised her performance in an interview with a yesteryear media house, Cinema Today. When asked about Jyotika's character and performance, he said, as per the archives, "Jyotika has been portrayed as a very shrewd person in the film. Her gracefulness, mischief, intelligence, acting, dancing, etc. reflect a fast sense of time! So her character would naturally be liked by all. My character role too is an important one in the film! Yet, if you review the entire film, it would be seen that Jyotika has excelled me in acting!"
Vijay worked on Kushi simultaneously while also filming Fazil's Kannukkul Nilavu. At the time, the film received underwhelming reviews and was also not commercially successful. In the same interview, Vijay has also opened up about how he had to switch between the mentally disturbed Gautham Prabhakar and the happy-go-lucky Shiva while filming for the two films back-to-back.
He said, "I have done Kannukkul Nilavu, living out the life of Gautham Prabhakar for about 70 or 80 days. That character's impact was there in my inner mind. Is it possible to wipe out those impressions all of a sudden? It was at that juncture that Kushi's shooting schedule started. I got committed to Kushi even before completing Kannukkul Nilavu. So that particular role's impact might have lingered on to be present in two or three scenes of Kushi also."
Kushi also starred Mumtaj, Vijayakumar, Vivek and Nizhalgal Ravi, among others, in the supporting roles. The film's cinematography was done by Jeeva, while music was composed by Deva. The Telugu version of the film, also titled Kushi, was initially planned as a bilingual along with the Tamil version. However, due to production delays, it ended up releasing a year later in 2001. The film was further remade in Hindi as Khushi and in Kannada as Eno Onthara.
