his first film, in 2002, was "thamizh", with prashanth and simran. film critic balaji commented that it was "one of the few movies in recent times where a lot of importance seems to have been attached to the script. in spite of the flimsy story and routine screenplay where a youth grows to be a "dada", the dialogs elevate the quality of the movie and make it very enjoyable". his second film "saamy", under the kavithaalaya banner, starred vikram. it was named the year's biggest hit, grossing 160 million. its success led to remakes; in telugu ("lakshmi narasimha"), kannada ("ayya") and hindi languages ("policegiri"). his next two films "kovil", with silambarasan and "arul" also starred vikram. in 2005, he made "ayya", starring sarathkumar, which introduced nayantara to tamil cinema. his next film was "aaru", with suriya in 2005. in 2007, he directed two films, "thaamirabharani" with vishal and "vel", with suriya. in 2008, he directed "seval", with bharath. ayyappa prasad from nowrunning.com stated that hari "panders to the taste of his rural audience all the way, but the movie is bound to disappoint city-dwellers, since neither the story nor its treatment appeal to anyone with high iq .