Directed by S. Shankar., Enthiran is the first instalment in the Enthiran franchise and stars Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Rai, Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam and Karunas.
As the film opens we meet struggling scientist Vaseegaran (played by Rajinikanth) who is battling to control a robot he created in his own image called Chitti (also played by Rajinikanth) following decades of research. Problems arise after Chitti’s software is upgraded to give it the ability to comprehend and exhibit human emotions. This results in Chitti falling in love with Vaseegaran‘s girlfriend (Rai). Chitti is saddened when Sana explains that they are just friends so he deliberately fails an evaluation conducted by the Indian Army. Enraged, Vaseegaran chops Chitti into pieces, which are dumped by Siva and Ravi into a landfill site.
Rival scientist Bohra (Denzongpa) visits the site to retrieve Chitti, which has now reassembled itself, albeit in a damaged state. Bohra embeds a red chip inside Chitti while reconstructing it, converting it into version 2.0, which is more aggressive and unempathetic. Chitti then gatecrashes Vaseegaran and Sana’s wedding, kidnaps Sana, creates replicas of itself and kills Bohra.
Using its robot army, Chitti occupies AIRD and causes mayhem in the city. After informing Sana that it has acquired the human ability to reproduce, Chitti wishes to marry her so that a machine and a human being can give birth to a preprogrammed child, but Sana refuses. It eventually finds Vaseegaran, who entered AIRD to stop it, and nearly kills him before the police appear. The ensuing battle between Chitti’s robot army and the police personnel leads to a lot of property destruction and many casualties.
Luckily, Vaseegaran eventually captures Chitti using a magnetic wall and accesses its internal control panel, whereby he instructs all the other robots to self-destruct. He then removes Chitti’s red chip, calming it.
Later, in a court hearing, Vaseegaran is sentenced to death for the casualties and damages caused by the robot army, but Chitti explains that it was Bohra who caused its deviant behaviour and shows the court video footage of Bohra installing the red chip. The court releases Vaseegaran, while ordering that Chitti be dismantled. Left with no choice, Vaseegaran asks Chitti to dismantle itself. While saying goodbye, Chitti apologises to Vaseegaran and Sana, who forgive it, before dismantling itself.
The film’s setting then shifts to 2030. Chitti is now a museum exhibit. A curious school student on excursion asks her guide why it was dismantled, to which Chitti responds, “Naan sinthikka arambichen” (I started thinking) indicating that he is still fully functional… (for a sequel!).
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