The 1993 super hit film 'Gentleman' has the distinction of being the debut of director Shankar and finds its place in the history of Tamil cinema as one of the most stylishly made action entertainer of all time. It was the fourth film of A.R. Rahman and was his third in Tamil and after this the Shankar-Rahman combo came to be known as one the best in Indian cinema.

An intersting trivia is that initially Vaali was signed on to write all the songs for 'Gentleman' and the first one he wrote was the resounding hit "Chikku bukku chikku bukku railey".

However Shankar was not satisfied with the opening lines and insisted on changing it in spite of Vaali telling him it would be a big hit. Later Shankar decided to go with the same lines but Vaali got offended and walked out of the project. This paved the way for Vairamuthu to join the Shankar-ARR combo and they gave several hits later on. But Shankar reconciled with Vaali for whom he had immense respect and they worked together again in other films.