Si3 (film)

Si3
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Hari
Produced by	K. E. Gnanavel Raja Dhaval Jayantilal Gada
Written by	Hari
Starring	Suriya Anushka Shetty Shruti Haasan
Music by	Harris Jayaraj
Cinematography	Priyan
Edited by	V. T. Vijayan T. S. Jay
Production company	Studio Green Pen Movies Aadnah Arts
Distributed by	Pen Movies
Release date	9 February 2017 (2017-02-09)[1]
Running time	154 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	₹ 45 crore
Box office	est. ₹100 crore.apprx[2]

Singam 3 is a 2017 Indian Tamil-language action masala film written and directed by Hari. A sequel to Singam II (2013) and the third film in the Singam franchise, it stars Suriya, Anushka Shetty and Shruti Haasan in the lead roles.^[3] It is the fifth collaboration of Suriya and Hari.

Principal photography commenced in January 2016 in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.^[4] The film was released worldwide on 9 February 2017 along with the Telugu dubbed version, Yamudu 3.^[5] The film was later dubbed into Hindi as Suriya S3 for television release on Zee Cinema on 26 August 2017.

Plot

The film starts with a tough debate in the new Andhra Pradesh state assembly about the long pending murder case of Visakhapatnam City Police Commissioner Ramakrishna IPS (Jayaprakash). The Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh, K. Sathyanarayana Reddy (Sarath Babu) proposes to bring DCP Durai Singam (Suriya) from Tamil Nadu police to solve the long pending case. Durai Singam learns about Madhusudhana Reddy (Sharat Saxena), a don ruling Andhra Pradesh and gives a casual impression under a disguise after facing some attacks, while he secretly investigates the case from all aspects. Meanwhile, Durai Singam is being followed by Vidya (Shruti Haasan) who is a journalist under cover, tracking Durai Singam in a disguise as IPS student named Vidhya. Durai Singam states he has divorced his wife, Kavya (Anushka Shetty), but secretly contacts her. Later, after suspicions about this were made by his colleague, Subba Rao, who is an Inspector of Police and seen Durai Singam with Kavya, he discloses the divorce cover up as an intent to keep Kavya away from his enemies.

After tracking a suspect, Singam meets ACP Krishnaraj's driver Mallaya (Jeeva Ravi) and the school teacher (Joe Malloori) who confesses how his granddaughter died due to toxic smoke caused by burning wastes from Australia in a nearby dump yard. Singam learns that the brains behind this illegal dumping of biological waste and electronic waste from Australia include Vittal Prasad (Thakur Anoop Singh), an Australian-Indian wealthy businessman and Union Minister Ram Prasad (Suman), Vittal's father. Vittal is a ruthless but wealthy businessman who supervises Madhusudhana Reddy and his staff member/assistant Rajeev Krishna (Kamlesh). Singam also learns that when Ramakrishna tried to expose this truth to the media, he was brutally killed by Madhusudhana Reddy and his subordinates. When Singam attempts to arrest Madhusudhana Reddy, Madhusudhana Reddy's men kill the school teacher and Vittal warns Singam that he would destroy his whole family and his village. Durai Singam visits Australia with his wife, incognito, to investigate Vittal. He visits Vittal's company and secretly hacks into Vittal 's database. He and Kavya then 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 gets fired from the CBI, but manages to become the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Vishakhapatnam City. Meanwhile, Vidhya who is in love with Singam discovers that he is already married decides to help him and goes to meet Vittal. He comes to know about her plan and kidnaps her. Singam saves her with the help of Kavya. He then investigates Vittal more seriously and kills Madhusudhana Reddy. He gets an arrest warrant on Vittal, who tries to escapes to the neighbouring Telangana state and catch a plane to Malaysia at Hyderabad airport, though his passport has been blocked. Singam arrests him by blocking the plane in a runway using a car. He locks up Vittal in shackles 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, Thoothukudi(Tuticorin) within the next thirty-six hours, sitting back from Australia. Durai Singam makes a plan to create a sudden brake failure of the van and to capsize into the 40-foot deep river on the way, killing Vittal. Vittal breaks his shackles and escapes into the Talakona forest, which is video taped by Singam. He then fights with Vittal and finally kills him. He then gets reinstated in the CBI and returns to being the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Tuticorin, 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.

Cast

Anushka Shetty was cast as lead heroine marking her third collaboration with Suriya .

Shruti Hassan was cast as One of the lead heroine marking her Second collaboration with Suriya .

Production

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.^[6][7] 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.^[8][9]

While most of the cast was retained from the earlier films, Initially Akshara Hasan was considered for the second female lead but she opted out the film then 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.^[10][11] Anirudh later opted out of the project citing scheduling issues and Harris Jayaraj was brought in to compose the film's music.^[12] 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".^[13] 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.^[14][15][16] 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.^[17]

The start of the film's shoot, initially scheduled for December 2015, was delayed as a result of the 2015 South Indian floods.^[18] 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.^[19][20] 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.^[21][22][23] 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.^[24][25] 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.^[26][27]

Release

Singam 3 went through several changes of release date, before being released on 9 February 2017 coinciding with Thaipusam festival.^[28] The film was completed in mid-2016 and the team completed post-production work aiming to have a theatrical release in October to coincide either with the Ayudha Puja or Diwali season, but the release was postponed to avoid a box office clash with Suriya's brother, Karthi's film, Kaashmora.^[29] The film was then scheduled to release on 16 December. However, due to a request from the makers of Dhruva, the film release date was pushed even later on 23 December to make most of the Christmas holiday season, but was delayed after the team chose to allow the public of Tamil Nadu more time to recuperate from the aftermath of Cyclone Vardah, the death of Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha and the demonetisation problems.^[30][31] Prior to the film's revised release date of 26 January, PETA India had remarked that Suriya was trying to garner publicity for Si3 by speaking out against the organisation at the 2017 pro-Jallikattu protests. Suriya subsequently filed a legal notice against PETA for the defamatory allegations.^[32] The film was pushed back even further following riots in Chennai at the end of the protest, with the producers finalising a worldwide theatrical release date of 9 February.^[33][27] In Malaysia, this movie was available in Astro First channel 481 in early April 2017. Viewers need to pay RM15.00 to watch the movie for two days. The first premiere of this movie was in Astro Vinmeen Channel 231(HD) during the festive weekend of Hari Raya Haji and further premiered in Astro Vellithirai Channel 202 on Diwali 2017.The satellite rights of Si3 were sold to Sun TV.^[34]Amazon has acquired the digital rights of Si3.^[35]

Critical reception

This film received generally positive reviews. Times of India stated that the delayed release " did not seem to deter Duraisingam from roaring loud, making swift actions, bashing up the baddies uncompromisingly and winning applause from his colleagues as well as the audience", while also lauding Suriya and Hari's contribution to the film. The critic rated 3 out of 5 and wrote "Suriya, who carries the entire film on his shoulders, is in full form — Duraisingam looks as intense, brave and energetic as he appeared more than six years ago", and "director Hari’s consistency in handling cop stories convincingly and entertainingly needs to be commended as he has been proving his expertise repeatedly".^[36] The New Indian Express also gave 3 out of 5 for the film and gave positive review, stating "In Si3, Suriya proves with the third film of the franchise that no one can play Durai Singam better than him", while analysing that "Hari maintains a sense of urgency in his films from the beginning to end, but, as a commercial film director, his storytelling methods also suffer from following a set of rules, which include frequent yawn-inducing songs", though added that "he makes up for that formulaic approach with fast-paced narration in the scenes that follows".^[37] Behindwoods rated the film 2.75 out of 5 and stated that "Durai Singam strikes again! Suriya and Hari don't disappoint you in this Singam franchise".^[38] Filmibeat rated it 3 out of 5 and stated "Singam 3 is sure to entertain the fans of Singam franchise. With full-form, Singam 3 packs the same punch as it's prequels".^[39] In contrast, the critic from The Hindu gave 2 out of 5 and stated that the film was "loud, fast, and without a single memorable moment".^[40] Likewise, Sify called the film "a cocktail of harebrained predictable plot, exhausting action scenes and slapstick comedy", while concluding it was "loud and exhausting".^[41]

Box office

Si3 film collected ₹20 crore (US$2.8 million) in domestic box office on its opening day and ₹77 crore (US$11 million) in 5 days of release.^[42] The film collected ₹100 crore (US$14 million) worldwide in 6 days.^[43] Singam 3 final box-office was approximately 136 crores. And the film completed 100 days run and was declared super hit.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack is scored by Harris Jayaraj, who replaced Devi Sri Prasad as the composer of the film series. Taking a break after various schedules of shooting, director Hari and Harris Jayaraj completed the song composing in Bangkok, Thailand.^[44] The audio rights of the film was acquired by Eros Music and the complete album was released on 27 November 2016. Reviewing the album, Srivatsan of India Today stated "S3 might not be Harris' best work, but definitely not bad either. Having said that, it's a pucca (English: really) commercial album from the composer. Be it the songs or the theme music, the album has enough scope to pander to the B and C centers".^[45]

References

External links

• S3 (2017) on IMDb