Kaalaiyan (Rajinikanth) lives a poor lifestyle with his widowed mother. He falls in love with a girl called Sumathi (Sheeba Akashdeep), but because of his poor background Sumathi's wealthy father, Murukesh (Nagesh), is not ready to accept him. Kaalaiyan also gets into hot water with Murukesh as he opposes his men who were planning to demolish some huts. Murukesh and his partner (Jaiganesh) devise a plan to kill Kalaiyan by tricking him into believing that he was going to marry him to Sumathi. The plan works and they eventually succeed in killing him. Kalaiyan's spirit goes to the underworld and meets the Lord of Death himself, Yamadharma Raja (Vinu Chakravarthy). Kalaiyan explains Yama the whole ordeal and that his death was a mistake, so Yama transports him back to an identical body of a mild-mannered villager, Balwant Balu also(Rajinikanth), whose life is threatened by his paternal uncle and aunt, who are trying to kill him.