Singam (film series)

Singam (2010)

Durai Singam (Suriya) is the honest police sub-inspector of Nallur, a small village in Thoothukudi district in southern Tamil Nadu, assisted by his bumbling colleague Erimalai (Vivek). He belongs to Nallur with his father, Soundarapandi (Radha Ravi) having a respectable status in the village. His family business is provision stores and Durai Singam wants to join it, but he joined police due to Soundarapandi's wishes. He resolves most of the problems in his village with non-violence and mutual counselling. He uses force only when the situation demands it, thereby gaining much reputation and love from the villagers. Mahalingam (Nassar), an industrialist in Chennai and a friend of Soundarapandi, comes to the village with his daughter Kavya (Anushka Shetty). Durai Singam initially mistakens Kavya as a thief, when she is about to prank her cousin by wearing a tiger costume and roam around the village, accidentally slaps her. As Kavya is about to take revenge on Durai Singam, he apologizes to her, Kavya got moved by this, slowly fell in love with him. After some hilarious incidents, Kavya proposes to Durai Singam. Initially taken aback, soon Durai Singam reciprocates Kavya's love.

Chennai-based Mayil Vaaganam (Prakash Raj), a big-time extortionist with shady mafia dealings who blackmails people by complaining to the Income Tax Department, is required to travel to Nallur to sign a conditional bail. He instead, sends one of his allies to do the formalities, much to the anger and rage of Durai Singam who demands Mayil Vaaganam sign the bail in person. Humiliated, Mayil Vaaganam reaches Nallur but is unable to take any revenge on Durai Singam fearing the immense love and devotion of the entire village towards Durai Singam. Using his political contacts, he gets Durai Singam transferred to Chennai to teach him a lesson.

Durai Singam, unaware of Mayil Vaaganam's hand behind his transfer, joins Thiruvanmiyur police station. His co-worker, Sub-Inspector Ravi (Bose Venkat), hates Mayilvaaganam for his crimes but is unable to take any action because of Mayil Vaaganam's political powers. The Assistant Commissioner of Police, Rajendran (Nizhalgal Ravi), Durai Singam's senior, is on Mayil's payroll and takes care in concealing and eliminating the evidence of Mayil Vaaganam's crimes from the eyes of the law. The Police Commissioner (Ajay Rathnam) also does not help Durai Singam as there is no evidence against Mayil Vaaganam and Rajendran and in turn, warns him to stay away from Mayil Vaaganam's case. Unable to take on Mayil Vaaganam in his stronghold, Durai Singam wants to return to his village, but is stopped by Kavya who encourages him to fight against the evil and not run like a coward.

Being mentally tortured by Mayil Vaaganam, Durai Singam arrests Mayil Vaaganam's brother Vaikundam (Adithya Menon) in a fake case of illegally smuggling alcohol. He thwarts off Rajendran in full view of the public when Rajendran, bounded by his duties to Mayil Vaaganam, tries to protect the henchman. Meanwhile, Mayil Vaaganam kidnaps Kavya's younger sister for ransom. Rescuing her, with unexpected help from the Home Minister, Ramanathan (Vijayakumar). Durai Singam successfully traces the origins of the kidnapping racket to Mayil Vaaganam. Durai Singam also gets promoted to Assistant Commissioner of the specially-formed Anti-Kidnapping Task Force. Mahalingam, who was hostile to Durai Singam following an altercation with Soundarapandi back at Nallur, softens up and agrees to give him Kavya's hand in marriage.

The entire police force, including the Police Commissioner, and Rajendran, now on Duraisingam's side, decide to help Durai Singam fight Mayil Vaaganam. They manage to kill Mayil Vaaganam's henchman in an encounter at a hospital and begins to target everyone and everything related to Mayil Vaaganam. In retribution, Mayil Vaaganam starts targeting everyone close to Durai Singam, including Kavya, whom he shoots but is saved by Durai Singam, and Ravi, who is hacked to death by Mayil Vaaganam's henchmen. To escape the arrest warrant issued out to him, Mayil Vaaganam kidnaps the Karnataka Home Minister's daughter. He falsely tells Durai Singam that he is going to Pondicherry with her when actually he is going to Nellore in Andhra Pradesh to put the police off the track. However Durai Singam manages to pursue them till Gudur near Nellore, where he rescues the home minister's daughter and kills Mayil Vaaganam in an encounter.

During the credits, Durai Singam is seen with Kavya heading back to Nallur, and as when Durai Singam is stopped briefly by Ramanathan who offers an undercover mission, to which Durai Singam willingly agrees, setting the stage for the events of Singam II.

Singam II (2013)

After having killed extortionist Mayil Vaaganam in the first film, Durai Singam (Suriya) has gone undercover after meeting the Home Minister, Ramanathan (Vijayakumar) and is working as an NCC officer in a school in Thoothukudi. The only people who know about this operation are the Chief Minister (K. Viswanath) and Ramanthan. Sathya (Hansika Motwani) is a student who falls for Durai Singam though he is waiting to marry Kavya (Anushka Shetty), his love interest. Durai Singam's father, Soundara Pandi is angry about him leaving the police force and refuses to speak with him. He also forbids the marriage between Durai Singam and Kavya, as he fears Kavya's father Mahalingam (Nasser) might take Durai Singam away to manage his business empire and that Durai Singam will lose respect within his relatives.

Susai (Santhanam), a local who works in the same school shows Durai Singam parts of Thoothukudi and tells him about the rogue elements dominating the area helping him in his surveillance. He requests Ramanathan to transfer Erimalai (Vivek) and another cop to assist him. Sathya's moves are frequently repulsed by Durai Singam who learns that Sathya is the niece of rich exports businessman Thangaraj (Rahman). Bhai (Mukesh Rishi) and Thangaraj, pretend to be enemies, but are two criminals who control the south-east coastline of Tamil Nadu. Bhai and Thangaraj have connections with an international gangster and drug lord Danny (Danny Sapani), and are trafficking cocaine. Durai Singam doesn't know about their connection and keeps Bhai in his off duty surveillance.

One day, due to a verbal fight in a pub, Bhai's chief drug importer, Saghayam (Rajendran) kidnaps a girl from another caste and holds her ransom until sunset and then releases her to damage her family name. This causes a communal problem in the city, and Durai Singam's school principal is advised to close the school for the day. With his info connections, Durai Singam learns of the problem, and takes charge as new Deputy-Superintendent of Police for the urban, and rescues the girl. He is lauded by the press and his father forgives him. Meanwhile, Sathya insults Kavya thinking that Durai Singam had sent her to keep her away. This angers Singham and he shouts at Sathya. She understands they are strongly in love and distances herself from them. Though Kavya forgives and befriends her.

Then Durai Singam finds out about Thangaraj and Bhai's partnership. He plans to arrest Saghayam first, gathering evidence while Saghayam is out to sea, and waits to arrest him at the harbour. But Saghayam is bringing Danny with him to attend Thangaraj's new hotel's party. Sagyam is arrested by plan, and Durai Singam arrest Danny without knowing his identity, but due to lack of visa. Thangaraj tries multiple power levels to make Durai Singam release the duo, but it is not of any use. Finally they take Durai Singam to his superior's office, and then break open his station to release Danny and Saghayam. Durai Singam finds that Danny has escaped, the police station in ruins, and his fellow officers injured. All of Durai Singam's effort is spoiled due to his superior and the next morning he is suspended for unruly behaviour. Though without power, he warns Bhai that he knows about Danny and will return soon.

Durai Singam meets Ramanathan at Chennai, and plans an operation to eliminate all gangs. He then gets re-appointed and gets his superior suspended. He gets authorization to kill drug dealers on sight even without evidence. Since the next load of drugs is ready to be delivered by Danny, Bhai decides that Saghayam will deliver the drugs to him in Kerala, and he will bring it back. But he is arrested by Durai Singam, drugs in hand.

The next day, at Durai Singam's engagement function, a former adversary, Harbour Shanmugam informs him that Thangaraj has hired goons to attack his home at night and kill everyone. Durai Singam foils that plan also, by breaking his gun, giving it in the armoury and then killing the goons single-handedly. Durai Singam then places a drug bag insides Thangaraj's house and arrests Thangaraj and jails him. After a moment, Durai Singam gets a phone call from someone to inform him that Sathya has died. He rushed to Thangaraj's house and there, he sees Sathya lying dead in her bed.

He further analyzes that Sathya was killed by her own dad who poisoned her. Depressed and guilt ridden, Durai Singam seeks permission from Kavya for moving to South Africa as his marriage will take place in 3 days. Meanwhile, Durai Singam traces Danny to South Africa to do drug business again. Durai Singam goes to Africa to arrest Danny, and locks him in the same cell from where Danny had escaped.

Singam 3 (2017)

The film starts with a lot of trouble in a residual Andhra Pradesh state assembly where the long pending murder case of Vishakhapatnam City Police Commissioner Ramakrishna IPS (Jayaprakash) is being discussed where Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh, K. Sathyanarayana (Sarath Babu) proposes to bring Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Durai Singam (Suriya) from Tamil Nadu police to solve the long pending case, and also to take care of the city's law and order. Initially, being attacked by Madhusudhana Reddy's (Sharat Saxena) men at a railway station at his arrival, Durai Singam bashes them out and joins the Vishakhapatnam Police Force under the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) pretending to be casual and not serious about the murder case. Then Durai Singam secretly investigates the case from all aspects. Meanwhile, Durai Singam is being followed by Vidhya (Shruti Haasan) who is a journalist from Andhra Pradesh, tracking Durai Singam in disguise as student appearing for IPS exams. Durai Singam states he has divorced his wife, Kavya Mahalingam (Anushka Shetty), but secretly contacts her. Later, after suspicion of Subba Rao (Robo Shankar), it is disclosed that Durai Singam's divorce is a ploy to protect Kavya from attacks from any suspects of the murder case. Durai Singam ended finding out that Madhusudhana Reddy is behind the murder in a series of investigations and decides to wipe out all the goons in Vishakhapatnam along with arresting police officers involved in the murder of Ramakrishna.

After tracking a suspect he comes across; a school teacher, Durai Singam comes to know of an illegal dumping of biological waste and electronic waste from Australia by Vittal Prasad (Thakur Anoop Singh) an Australian-Indian wealthy businessman, who is thought to contribute 7% of India's economy. Vittal is the son of Central Minister Ram Prasad (Suman) who works as a mastermind behind waste dumping from Australia in Vishakhapatnam by help of Madhusudhana Reddy and his staff member/assistant Rajeev Krishna (Kamalesh). When Ramakrishna tried to expose this truth to the media, he was brutally killed by Madhusudhana Reddy and his subordinates. This was witnessed by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Krishnaraj's driver Mallaya (Jeeva Ravi) and the school teacher (Joe Malloori) who lost his granddaughter in toxic smoke caused by burning wastes from Australia in a nearby dump yard. When Durai Singam attempts to arrest Madhusudhana Reddy and Vittal with help from both Mallaya and the school teacher and the recent discovered evidence collected. But, Madhusudhana Reddy's men kills the school teacher and Vittal warns Durai Singam that he would destroy his whole family from Australia if he further investigates the case. Durai Singam lets Madhusudhana Reddy to escape from this and visits Australia with his wife, incognito, to investigate Vittal. He visits Vittal's company and secretly hacks into Vittal 's database. He and Kavya escape from Vittal and return to India. Then suddenly, three people surrender in the court pleading guilty that they killed Ramakrishna due to sexual misconduct. This angers Ramakrishna's family and the media. Durai Singam is fired from the CBI and leaves the CBI office in Vishakhapatnam, where he is met by K.Satyanarayana.

He tells K. Satyanarayana that he is getting himself from out from the Tamil Nadu Police force and requests to be inducted into the Andhra Pradhesh Police force, to which K.Satyanarayana agrees. He is then appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Vishakhapatnam City. He then investigates Vittal more seriously, makes him come to Vishakhapatnam, and kills Madhusudhana Reddy, clearing Ramakrishna's name. He finally gets an arrest warrant on Vittal. Vittal tries to escapes to a neighboring state in India, Telangana, with Ram's help and gets into a plane bound to Malaysia, though his Australian passport has been suspended. But still, Durai Singam arrests him, by blocking the plane in a runway using a car. Vittal is locked up in chains in a police van bound to Andhra Pradesh, when Vittal tells Durai Singam that he'll escape the clutches of the law within two hours legally, and he will destroy Durai Singam's hometown, Nallur within the next thirty-six hours, sitting back from Australia. Durai Singam explains that, according to his plan, the police van will have a sudden brake failure and will capsize into the 40-foot deep river on the way, killing Vittal. Vittal breaks his chains and escapes into the Talakona forest, which is video taped by Durai Singam. He then fights with Vittal and finally kills him. He then returns to being the DCP in Thoothukudi, having finished his mission in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

Six months later, while having a walk with Kavya, who is pregnant, Durai Singam is called into another assignment by the Home Minister of Tamil Nadu, Ramanathan.

Shortly after the release of Si3, Suriya confirmed that he and Hari would return for a fourth film in the series, but "say, after five years".^[5]

Singam (2010)

After Suriya had finished K. S. Ravikumar's Aadhavan, discussions regarding his subsequent project, notably his 25th film, were held. Initially, reports emerged that it was going to be directed by Prabhu Deva.^[6] At the launch of his film Seval in May 2009, however, director Hari announced officially that he would direct Suriya's 25th film titled Singam and that he had finished penning the script.^[6] Becoming Suriya's third film with Hari following Aaru and Vel, it was announced that the project would release in July 2010.^[7] Suriya's cousin, K. E. Gnanavel Raja was announced as the producer.^[8]

Though initial reports suggested that Yuvan Shankar Raja would score the music, Devi Sri Prasad was chosen as the music director, thus becoming his third venture with Suriya. Suriya was revealed to play a police officer in the film, the second time in his career after Kaakha Kaakha.^[9] Anushka was chosen to play the female lead, after several actresses were considered and approached.^[7] Priyan was chosen as the lead camera man and V.T. Vijayan as the editor.^[10]

Singam II (2013)

Reprising their roles from the original film are Anushka Shetty, Vivek, Vijayakumar, Nassar and Radha Ravi while Hansika Motwani was signed on as the second female lead.^[11] British actor Danny Sapani plays the main antagonist.^[12] The actress Anjali is also featured in an item number.^[13] Prakash Raj did not return for the sequel, but he can be seen in clips from Singam that are intermittently featured during Singam II. The film was shot mainly in Kerala, Tuticorin, Chennai, Tirunelveli and Karaikudi. The director has also filmed some of the key songs, stunts and talkie portions in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa, as well as Malaysia and Kenya. Primary production began in September 2012 and lasted for seven months until filming was wrapped up on 30 April 2013.^[14]

Singam 3 (2017)

Following the commercial success of Singam 2, Hari was keen to collaborate with Suriya for another action film with a fresh script away from the Singam franchise, and agreed terms in principle with the actor in October 2014.^[15][16] Hari revealed that as a result of pressure from those around him, he later developed the one-line story from the film into a script for a third part of Singam. While the first film was primarily shot within Tamil Nadu and the second featured a few scenes in South Africa, Hari stated that the third part would be more "international" and would be set in three countries as the protagonist tackles a global issue.^[17][18]

While most of the cast was retained from the earlier films, Shruti Haasan was added to the team in July 2015 to portray another leading female role, while Anirudh Ravichander was signed as the music composer replacing Devi Sri Prasad.^[19][20] Anirudh later opted out of the project citing scheduling issues and Harris Jayaraj was brought in to compose the film's music.^[21] Vivek, who portrayed the police officer Erimalai in the first two films, declined to reprise his role in this film as he felt he "did not have a meaty role in it".^[22] New actors to the series including Radhika, Soori, Robo Shankar, Krish and Nithin Sathya were added to the cast, while Thakur Anoop Singh was signed on to portray the lead antagonist.^[23][24][25] In preparation for his role, Suriya bulked up his physique by spending more hours in the gym and by adopting a strict oil-free diet.^[26]

The start of the film's shoot, initially scheduled for December 2015, was delayed as a result of the 2015 South Indian floods.^[27] Production began in Visakhapatnam during January 2015 with scenes featuring Shruti Haasan as a journalist being shot. Following a series of action sequences shot in the city, the team moved to film song sequences in Romania with Anushka joining the team.^[28][29] After a production break, the team restarted the shoot in Visakhapatnam, before moving to the Talakona Forest region and then on the AVM Studios in Chennai during mid-2016.^[30][31][32] The team moved to Malaysia to finish filming the climax in October 2016, before a further song was shot in Georgia with Suriya and Shruti Haasan.^[33][34] In January 2017, the film was re-titled from S3 to Si3 (spelt சி3 in Tamil) to exploit the Tamil Nadu Government's rule of entertainment tax exemption for films titled in Tamil.^[35][36]

Singam (2010)

Singam II (2013)

Singam 3 (2017)

Box Office