One of the most prolific director`s and a lyricist in the Tamil film industry, Hari is known for making action-masala films and his frequent collaboration with Vikram, Suriya Sivakumar, and Vishal. Having made his debut with the super hit action drama film Thamizh (2002), Hari established himself as the director who set the trend for making films that had larger than life male protagonists. His penchant for making action-packed movies has earned him the nickname as `the aruva director.`

Early Life
Born in a small town called Katchana in the Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, Hari is the son Gopal Nadar who worked as a vessels merchant. After spending most of his time in Tirunelveli, Hari later moved to Chennai where he pursued his graduation in Commerce. After completing his education, Hari, who was passionate about making it big in the film industry, he started his career working as an assistant to directors like K. Natraj in Valli, Nassar in Avatharam and K. Balachander in Kalki. He had to struggle a lot before making it big as a director.

Personal Life
Director Hari is married to actress Preetha Vijayakumar, the daughter of the veteran actor Vijayakumar. The couple has three sons; Preetha gave birth to their third son on the sets of Seval.

Movie Career
As a diector
After learning the nuances of film direction by assisting many directors, Hari made his directorial debut with Tamizh (2002), the action drama starring Prashant, Simran Bagga, Nassar, and Vadivelu. The film opened to wide positive reviews and emerged to be a commercial hit. Following the success of his debut film, in 2003 the director collaborated with actor Vikram for the action drama Sammy. The film also featuring Trisha Krishnan, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Ramesh Khanna and Vivek in important roles was highly successful at the box office. Following its success in Tamil, it was later remade in Telugu as Lakshmi Narasimha (2004), in Kannada as Ayya (2005) and in Hindi as Policegiri (2013) starring Sanjay Dutt and Prachi Desai.

In his first directorial venture of 2004, Hari made Kovil, an action-drama featuring Silambarasan and Sonia Agarwal in lead roles and Vadivelu, Rajkiran and Nassar in important supporting roles. The film, which is based on the animosity of two families from adjacent villages across generations opened to wide positive reviews from the critics and Simbhu winning praises from the audience for his restraint and matured acting. Later in the same year, the director delivered yet another blockbuster titled Arul. The film, which has Hari`s second collaboration with Vikram also featured Jyothika, Pasupathy, K.S. Ravikumar, Saranya Ponvannan and Vadivelu in important roles.

The director`s next major hit was the Singam (2010), the first film in the Singam series. The film starring Suriya Sivakumar, Anushka Shetty, and Prakash Raj went on to become one of the highest-grossing Tamil films that year. He later made Singam II (2013) and Singam III (2017) both of which were commercial hits.

As a lyricist
Apart from directing films, Hari has also worked as a lyricist for several films, most of which were his own directorial ventures. He made his debut as a lyricist with Aaru (2005). His other notable film as a lyricist includes Seval (2008), Singam (2010), Venghai (2011) and Singam III (2017).