Kaakha Kaakha

The film starts with a man being shot and falls from his home to river but survives when he swims to ground. The man is revealed to be Anbuselvan, who now remembers his past.

Anbuselvan, an orphan and an honest but stone-hearted IPS officer in the Chennai City Police, works as the Assistant Commissioner of Police Officer in the Crime Branch. Anbuselvan and his IPS friends Shrikanth, Arul and Ilamaran are recruited as a part of a special unit of police officers, who are battling organised crime in Chennai. Anbuselvan is violent and laconic in his duties and finds little patience for his personal life. The unit is ruthless in its confrontation with criminals, going as far as assassinating gang members. The unit is finally disbanded by human rights authorities when they assassinate five gangsters in three months, believing that killing them is more beneficial than arresting them and dealing with the legal system, and so Anbuselvan is posted to duties in the control room.

One day, Maya, a school teacher, rebuffs Anbuselvan's routine questions regarding safety, not knowing about his profession. Anbuselvan meets Maya again when she and her friend are questioned for driving without a license. However, Anbuselvan lets them off with a warning. When one of Maya's students has a problem with local kids, she asks Anbuselvan for help. Anbuselvan resolves this problem and a mutual respect develops between them, where they begin to see each other everyday. When Maya gets into a road accident, Anbuselvan helps her recover and they fall in love with each other. Shrikanth and his wife Swathi become good friends with Maya.

Meanwhile, Agaram Sethu, a gangster who escaped from encounter operations, meets his estranged brother Pandiya, who returns to Chennai after 14 years of crime life in Maharashtra. Pandiya has a peculiar tactic: he kills a family member of his opponent, but leaves the opponent alive to rot in depression over the loss of his family member. Sethu's gang, aided by Pandiya's planning, commits major kidnappings in the city and becomes powerful in 6 months. The special unit is reassembled by the commissioner with all four back in the crime branch. One day, Sethu and pandiya go to make a deal with Vasu Seth. On the deal, the unit tracks down and kills Sethu in a railyard, while the others escape.

Pandiya takes over the gang, promising to exact revenge against the special unit for Sethu's death. Pandiya and his gang members kill the family of Vasu Seth, leaving only him alive. Then, Pandiya calls Anbuselvan to tell him that he will kidnap his girlfriend in front of his eyes. Alerted, Anbuselvan and his team find Pandiya where Anbuselvan injures him but Pandiya escapes, and the same night Pandiya and his men murder Ilamaran. The entire department is mobilised and all family members of the remaining three are sent into hiding. Maya and Anbuselvan get married in a hurry and leave for Pondicherry, but Pandiya and his thugs track down the couple at their cottage. Anbuselvan tries to defend but his gun is unloaded. Pandiya and his thugs kidnap Maya and seemingly kill Anbuselvan, who later survives.

In the present, Srikanth and Arul find Anbuselvan, who is left for dead and the two admits him to hospital. Anbuselvan recovers while Shrikanth reveals that Swathi was kidnapped earlier at the airport and confesses that he was the one who gave away Anbuselvan's location to Pandiya and swapped his pistol's magazine with an empty one, for Swathi's safe return. Shrikanth feels extreme remorse over the brutal events that happened to Anbuselvan and Maya. While in the hospital, they receive a message from Pandiya to meet him at a particular location in Andhra Pradesh. When they go there, they find two packages, one containing Swathi's severed head and the other containing Maya's arm flesh. Shrikanth and Anbuselvan are distraught, with the former being hysterical upon seeing Swathi's head. Feeling guilty and responsible, Shrikanth shoots himself dead.

Anbuselvan and Arul track down Pandiya before he can escape from Tamil Nadu and fights with the gang. Anbuselvan aims to shoot Pandiya, but Pandiya, while using Maya as a human shield shoots her and she dies in Anbuselvan's arms. Enraged, Anbuselvan tracks down Pandiya and kills him, avenging Maya and his friends' deaths. In the aftermath, Anbuselvan pays respects to Maya as he leaves for work.

The music was composed by Harris Jayaraj, with lyrics by Thamarai.^[18][19] The song "Ondra Renda" is based on "Dil Ko Tumse Pyar Hua" from the 2001 Hindi film Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein in which Harris himself was the music composer.^[20][21] While writing the song "Oru Ooril", Thamarai wanted to highlight a woman's personality over her appearance.^[22]

Kaakha Kaakha was cleared with a U/A certificate by the censor board with no cuts.^[23] The film was released in theatres on 1 August 2003.^[1] It was released in the United Kingdom under the title The Police.^[24] The film emerged a commercial success, running for over 100 days in theatres.^[25] It had an alternate ending which showed Jyothika's character surviving, but was released only on DVD as an extra.^[26][27]

Menon remade the film in Telugu as Gharshana (2004).^[37] In July 2004, he agreed terms to direct and produce another version of Kaakha Kaakha in Hindi with Sunny Deol in the lead role and revealed that the script was written five years ago with Deol in mind, but the film eventually failed to take off.^[38] In 2010, producer Vipul Shah approached Menon to direct the Hindi version Force (2011); he initially agreed before pulling out.^[39] The film was also remade in Kannada in 2011 as Dandam Dashagunam.^[40] Menon and Thanu floated the idea of an English version with a Chechnyan backdrop, though talks with a potential collaboration with Ashok Amritraj collapsed.^[8]

Kaakha Kaakha emerged a breakthrough for Menon and Suriya.^[41][42][43] Thanu considered it his comeback after the failure of Aalavandhan (2001).^[44] Though Jeevan fetched significant attention for his role and more offers to play antagonists, he declined as he was only in favour of lead roles.^[45][46] Though the film attained popularity among Tamil audiences for seemingly romanticising police brutality and vigilantism, as with other contemporaneous Tamil films, Kirubhakar Purushothaman wrote for India Today in 2018 that Tamil filmmakers should "reconsider their idea of vigilante justice that they have been fond of so far", especially after the Thoothukudi protest shooting which resulted in the deaths of 13 civilians.^[47]

In February 2018, Menon revealed his plans of making a sequel to Kaakha Kaakha.^[48] In August 2020, he revealed that he had written most of the script, but that Suriya wanted a gap between his police films after the Singam series, so the project was on hold.^[49] In September 2022, Thanu revealed that plans for the film were in place and that he had already paid an advance to Menon for the project.^[50]