Today is the birthday of director Gautham Menon,one of the highly respected directors to have emerged in South Indian cinema in the new millennium

With 'Minnale' and 'Kaakha Kaakha', Gautham strongly established the fact that he is going to be the master of two kinds of films- 'Refreshing urban romance' and 'Stylish cop stories'.

'Vaaranam Aayiram','Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya' and 'Neethane En Pon Vasantham' are the film that had different and realistic takes on love. Every Tamil film buff's list of favorite films under the romance genre will have the names of at least one film directed by Gautham.

The cop stories include 'Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu' and 'Yennai Arindhaal' with Kamal Haasan and Ajith Kumar respectively. As admitted by Gautham himself, Anbuselvan of 'KK', Raghavan of VV and Sathyadev of YA are different versions of the same character at his different stages of life. With his cop films Gautham has added immense style and swag to the Tamil cinema police officer. If 'Kaakha Kaakha' was the first big break for Suriya, 'VV' is a refreshing blockbuster for Kamal after many years and that was the one of the very few films in the past two decades, in which Kamal just acted without making any contribution on the creative side. YA showed Ajith as a realistic and emotional cop hero when fans were getting used to see him in a flurry of mass hero characters.

A section of film buffs and critics complain that Gautham makes only two types of films. But this complaint is not true;

At a early stage of his career, having delivered three consecutive super hit films in Tamil, Gautham did a film like 'Pachaikkili Muthucharam' which was about a middle aged family man victimized by a 'Honey trap' and how he comes safe out of that. Again after a blockbuster hit film. he directed and also produced a highly experimental psycho thriller 'Naduinisi Naaigal'. Though the film did not make any positive impression at the box office, it is beyond doubt a daring experiment in recent times. Even in his recent film 'Achcham Yenbathu Madamaiayda' Gautham had ventured into a new experiment. The two halves of the film fall under entirely different genres- the first a refreshing romance the second an action thriller.This time the experiment of Gautham turned to be a success as the film emerged as one of the biggest hit flicks of 2016.

There are some unique identities that one could associate with a Gautham film- Chaste Tamil title,many English dialogues, songs that are pleasing to ears as well as eye, intelligent romance scenes. eye catchy visuals, stylishly shot stunt sequences, light-heart humor as part of general conversation of characters and not as a separate comedy track and a lot more, These define Gautham's brand of films and these have earned him a lots and lots of fans.

Gautham is presently directing 'Enai Nokki Paayum Thota' with Dhanush and 'Dhruva Natchathiram' with Vikram. Both are actors who have won National Award and one cannot wait to watch the fireworks on the silver screen when these power house talents team up with this highly talented director. We can be assured that the two films will bring out a new dimension of the actor in Dhanush and Vikram who are well established stars with a huge fan following.

IndiaGlitz wishes Gautham Menon a Happy Birthday and a lots and lots of success and accolades in his career.