Vadivelu & Riyaz Khan Movies Together List — 10 Films
Complete Movies List & Collaboration History
Last updated: 2026-07-12 · Data sources: Wikipedia, TMDB
Vadivelu and Riyaz Khan appeared together in 10 Tamil films between 2001 and 2011. Their highest-rated collaboration was Arasu (2003 — 6.5/10). Films span Nageswari (2001) through Mambattiyan (2011).
The Vadivelu & Riyaz Khan partnership
2003 was their peak — 3 films in twelve months. From Nageswari (2001) to Mambattiyan (2011). For 10 years, a Vadivelu–Riyaz film arrived almost every year.
It started with Nageswari (2001).
The shape of the work
The 2000s account for 80% of everything they made together. The 2000s belonged to Arasu; the 2010s to Mambattiyan. Vadivelu acted in every film; Riyaz Khan acted in all of them. Strictly Tamil cinema — they never crossed industries together.
Partnership facts
- Vadivelu and Riyaz Khan first shared screen in Arasu (2003) because the director wanted a towering, menacing villain to match Vijay's heroism — and Riyaz, a former model with zero Tamil film experience at the time, was cast specifically to be the physical foil. Vadivelu's comedy track was written in later, making their first pairing an accident of scheduling.
- In Cheena Thaana 001 (2007), Vadivelu and Riyaz Khan played a bumbling spy and a Chinese agent who barely speak the same language. The comedy came from their real-life struggle: Riyaz didn't understand Tamil well, so Vadivelu would deliberately feed him wrong lines during rehearsals, forcing Riyaz to react genuinely confused — and that confusion stayed in the final cut.
- Riyaz Khan has said in interviews that Vadivelu never once called him by his real name on set — he only referred to him as 'Chinese' or 'Kung Fu' after Cheena Thaana 001, and the nickname stuck for years even among crew members.
- Riyaz Khan once told a Tamil magazine: 'Vadivelu would make me laugh so hard during takes that the director would yell cut. He ruined more shots than he saved — but those ruined shots were the funniest ones.'
- Their pairing in Aadhavan (2009) — where Vadivelu plays a henchman to Riyaz's villain — directly inspired the 'comic sidekick to a serious antagonist' template that later films like Soodhu Kavvum (2013) and Jigarthanda (2014) would borrow for their own villain-comedy dynamics.
10 films across 2 decades
The 2000s accounted for 8 films, averaging 5.3/10.
The 2010s accounted for 2 films, averaging 3.7/10.
- Arasu
- Winner
- Mambattiyan
- Sura
The partnership in numbers
Partnership Pattern
10 films across 10 years represents consistent collaboration.
Language Distribution
Linguistic diversity: 1 language, with Tamil being their primary medium.
Where each was in their career
37% of Riyaz Khan's screen credits are with Vadivelu. When they first worked together, Vadivelu had 73 films behind them; Riyaz Khan had 2.
Before Nageswari, Vadivelu had starred in 73 films, including Kizhakku Cheemayile (1993) and Kakkai Siraginilae (2000).
After Mambattiyan, Vadivelu went on to appear in 14 more films, including Sivalinga (2017) and Mersal (2017).
Before Nageswari, Riyaz Khan had starred in 2 films, including Athma (1993) and Kallazhagar (1999).
After Mambattiyan, Riyaz Khan went on to appear in 15 more films, including 2.0 (2018) and WWW (2021).
Collaboration Journey
A chronological view of Vadivelu & Riyaz Khan's professional partnership
Actors and musicians who worked on most of their films
Ilavarasu appears alongside them in 3 films — practically a third lead.
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