Kamal Haasan, the central character, is a man terribly soured by his unvaryingly devastating encounters with the opposite sex. He develops a pathological hatred for women and uses his charm to seduce young women and kill them immediately after having sex with each. These proceedings are recorded watched repeatedly by his adoptive father and mentor, another crazed woman-hater with a similarly disillusioning experience with the female sex, who vicariously enjoys his protege's exploits. The old man stays holed up in a far corner of the house watching his son carry out what he is too infirm to do.
Kamal's hateful view of women slowly begins to change when he meets Sridevi, a young and very beautiful shop assistant whom he easily attains by virtue of his good looks and wealth and marries, owing to her insistence. What was once another conquest to him slowly begins to rouse his tender feelings, but his fostered urges are as assertive as ever, and he enters a confused phase.
Sridevi, meanwhile stumbles upon Kamal's father, whom Kamal had told her was retarded and was not to be disturbed, and gets the shock of her life. She somehow manages to shut him in and tries to run out but Kamal returns before she gets a chance to leave the house. Sridevi puts on an agonising mask of normalcy and bides her time to escape. Kamal gets called away on business that night and she packs up her luggage and leaves the house, but is dramatically intercepted by Kamal who gets word of her flight through his watchman. A tense chase ensues, which ends in a graveyard in the dead of night, with Kamal stumbling and falling on a cross which pierces him.
He is subsequently jailed but gets mentally retarded and loses his bloodthirsty ways. He keeps repeating Sridevi's name, as it is his only coherent thought, and all other memories have been erased from his mind.
