Trust Shankar to give opportunities to directors who have different ideas and unconventional stories. Balaji Sakthivel’s career hadn’t been in the best of shape after Samurai failed to ignite the box office in spite of Vikram’s hot form at that time. The next story he penned was the type which would not find many takers in Kollywood. A motorcycle mechanic falling in love with the school going daughter of a rich and rough father, finally ending in tragedy. The producer needed to be a person who trusted the director and his abilities. Shankar knew that Balaji Shakthivel could be counted on to deliver, even with a story that was not purely commercial material, having been associated with him in a few films starting from Gentleman. S Pictures produced Kadhal and the rest, as they say, is history (even thought it is clichéd, better term is yet to be invented). It was also the film that gave many others a big break, especially Bharath, Sandhya, Kadhal Dhandapani and Joshua Sridhar.