Valimai

Valimai (transl. Strength) is a 2022 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by H. Vinoth. It is produced by Boney Kapoor under Bayview Projects LLP in association with Zee Studios, as co-producer and distributor. The film stars Ajith Kumar, Karthikeya, Huma Qureshi and Gurbani Judge. The film score is composed by Ghibran and the songs are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The cinematography is performed by Nirav Shah and the editing handled by Vijay Velukutty. It revolves around Arjun, a police officer, who is assigned to track down a group of outlaw bikers following their involvement in heinous crimes.

This film marked the second collaboration between Ajith, Vinoth and Kapoor after Nerkonda Paarvai (2019). Vinoth wrote the script in mid-2018, but Ajith initially declined it and asked him to work on it later. The idea was later pitched in January 2019 with Kapoor agreeing to fund the project and was officially launched in mid-October 2019, with its title. Principal photography began in December 2019 in Hyderabad and was completed in February 2021, irrespective of production being disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Major portions of the film were shot across Chennai and Hyderabad, in addition to a few sequences in Russia, which were filmed during late-August and early-September 2021.

The film was in the news for a long time, due to the persuasion of fans to launch an update regarding the project, leading to a campaign named #ValimaiUpdate, that influenced sports, politics and other events as well. It eventually led to being listed as one of the most-anticipated Tamil films according to trade circuits. After being delayed multiple times, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions being enforced in India, the film was released worldwide on 24 February 2022 to mixed reviews from critics.