Haasan told Ilaiyaraaja that the songs had already been shot with the music composed by Subramaniam and he wanted to remove the songs and re-shoot them with Ilaiyaraaja's. On hearing that, Ilaiyaraaja suggested to Haasan that he could fix it without Haasan needing to re-shoot any footage or songs. Puzzled, Haasan was initially reluctant. Then Ilaiyaraaja asked Haasan if he did not have trust in him, and Haasan immediately agreed. Subramaniam said he left the project, fearing that his association with the film may offend Hindu people due to its contentious storyline. The lyrics for the songs were not changed, but Ilaiyaraaja composed new tunes for the songs that would be in sync with the already shot footage. The background music and the songs were recorded in Hungary's Budapest Symphony Orchestra and thus Hey Ram became the first Tamil film and the second Indian film to be re-recorded with a foreign symphony orchestra. The first one was Ilaiyaraaja's own score for the Malayalam film Guru (1997). The song "Isaiyil Thodangudhamma" was not present initially, but Ilaiyaraaja had seen an opportunity for a possible song in the scene and asked Haasan to give him a chance to add one. But Haasan, being the writer-director of the film, didn't see it. Then Ilaiyaraaja convinced Haasan to trust him with this and brought notable Hindustani singer Ajoy Chakrabarty to sing one of the most celebrated songs from the movie, "Isaiyil Thodanguthamma" and also writing the lyrics for the same. Release Hey Ram was released simultaneously in Tamil and Hindi on 18 February 2000. A digitally remastered version of the film was released on 8 November 2019 on Amazon Prime Video. Internationally, the film was screened at the 25th Toronto International Film Festival and at the 2000 Locarno Festival. In 2015, Hey Ram was screened at the Habitat Film Festival. The film was re-released at Sathyam Cinemas on 8 November 2019. Controversies There were protests and press releases by political parties in select centres against the perceived negative depiction of Gandhi. Critical reception Hey Ram received critical acclaim. T. Krithika Reddy from The Hindu wrote, "Live sound, prosthetic make-up (Micheal Westmore), splendid cinematography (Thiru), magnificent art work (Sabu Cyril) and painstakingly designed costumes (Sarika) are some of the other highlights of this magnum opus, which is distinct in style and content...The chemistry between Kamal and Rani is explosive to say the least. Shah Rukh