Urimaikural

Gopinath and his elder brother Sundaram Pillai are very close, live under the same roof, and are very respected farmers. Gopi shares his time also to tease the young women of his village and particularly, the very beautiful Radha, his betrothed, endowed with a temperament, brave and very roguish. But above everything, 2 young people love each other profoundly and do not dare to declare it overtly. Of teasings in mutual harmless quarrels, 2 lovers who only yesterday, bickered, do not joke any more at the moment. They are not any more for the party, because a good-for-nothing son of the only big landed family of neighbourhood, Duraisamy wishes Radha ardently for his wife. Grasping this, the father of the young woman sees the opportunity there to grow rich and forget the promise made to Gopi' s family.

Another drama comes to darken more profoundly the picture of this family so welded: a strong sum of money collected in the village and under the responsibility of Sundaram Pillai is stolen from him by unknowns. Duraisamy is behind this theft because he was always jealous of Gopi and so wishes to damage the brothers, to soil their honour especially. He quenches so his vengeance to have been corrected by Gopi, some time previously. To fight this terrible test, Gopi and Sundaram mortgage their most precious good: their land. They are given one year to resolve the situation. But other painful events are going to precipitate things, very negatively.

• M. G. Ramachandran as Gopi (alias Gopinath)
• Latha as Radha
• Anjali Devi as Parvathi, Sundaram Pillai's wife
• M. N. Nambiar as Duraisamy
• S. V. Sahasranamam as Sundaram Pillai
• V. K. Ramasamy as Kozhaidhar Pulai
• C. K. Saraswathi
• V. S. Raghavan as Sabapathy
• Nagesh as Sadhasivam
• Thengai Srinivasan as Paramasivam
• Pushpalatha as Muthamma
• Sachu as Sachu/Sarasa
• Typist Gopu as Bai
• Samikannu as Villager
• Karikol Raju
• Usilai Mani
• Gemini Mali as Iyer

M. G. Ramachandran and Sridhar earlier were supposed to work in a film called Andru Sindhiya Ratham which got shelved. According to Sridhar, the reason for Ramachandran backing out may have been that, since Sridhar launched both Kadhalikka Neramillai (1964) and Andru Sindhiya Ratham at the same time, he promoted Kadhalikka Neramillai as the first contemporary colour film in Tamil but did not do the same for Andru Sindhiya Ratham, which may have made Ramachandran upset, causing him to leave.[2] Sridhar, who was reeling under financial problems due to failure of his previous film Alaigal and also his other film Vaira Nenjam was getting delayed due to call sheet issues of Sivaji Ganesan,[3] as per the advice of his friend, the Hindi actor Rajendra Kumar, decided to collaborate with Ramachandran who agreed to act under his direction.[4][5] Sridhar revealed that Urimai Kural was inspired from the Telugu film Dasara Bullodu (1971); he took only the basic plot from that film and made changes for Tamil version.[6] When Gopu saw the film he suggested Sridhar to do this film with Ganesan however Gopu was shocked when Sridhar said he would make this film with Ramachandran. Gopu who received opportunities as director after the success of his debut directorial Kasethan Kadavulada (1972) wanted to concentrate on directing films, which led both of them to part ways professionally but still remained friends.[7]

The cinematography for the film was handled by N. Balakrishnan; however the climax portions were shot by Thambu as Balakrishnan had to shoot the climax for another film.[8] The film was predominantly shot at a village near the garden belonging to Ramachandran while the climax portions were shot at land belonging to actor-producer K. Balaji and the songs were shot at Mysore.[9]

The music was composed by M. S. Viswanathan.[10][11] The song "Vizhiye Kadhai Ezhudhu" is set to Kambhoji raga.[12] This song and "Aambalaingala" were penned by Kannadasan, it was added by Sridhar when political issues led to a widening rift between Ramachandran and Kannadasan.[6] But Sridhar could not get a satisfactory response to the situation.[13] So Sridhar and Viswanathan decided to convince Ramachandran to have Kannadasan's song and Ramachandran accepted the proposal as he bore no personal grudge against the lyricist.[14][15]

Ananda Vikatan favourably reviewed the film, particularly the climax for its pace.[16] The film became a blockbuster at box-office.[15]

• Urimaikural at IMDb