Asuran (2019 film)

In 1980s Tamil Nadu, a man and a boy are trekking through a river in a rural village, carrying homemade bombs and hiding from the police. In another part of the village, a woman (Manju Warrier), man (Pasupathy) and a young child are also hiding from the police. The movie then moves into a flashback.

A narrator reveals in the flashback that the man is Sivasaami and the boy is his son Chidambaram, while the woman, man and child are Sivasaami's wife Pachaiyamma, her brother Murugesan and young daughter Lakshmi. They also had an older son called Velmurugan (Teejay Arunasalam). They are a family of farmers living in Thekkoor (lit. southern village) in Tirunelveli district. Sivasaami has a close, loving relationship with his older son but a distant, almost abusive relationship with Chidambaram. Sivasami's family, along with most residents of Thekkoor, are Dalits.

Vadakoor Narasimhan is the richest landlord from Vadakoor (lit. northern village), who belongs to an upper caste and is buying the farmlands in Thekkoor under the name of his servant for a cement factory his brother Venkatesan will take control of. However, they need Sivasaami's land as well to complete their plan, to which the family are against, especially Velmurugan. One day, Pachaiyamma argues with one of Narasimhan's sons who was unjustly extracting water from the common well, and he hits her, to which Velmurugan retaliates by severely injuring him and his men. The latter gets arrested for this, for which Sivasaami bows and touches the feet of every single male member of the landlord's village in order to have him released after Narasimhan says so. Velmurugan comes back, bruised and battered, and finds out about what his father did. He corners Narasimhan in a bathroom cubicle and hits him multiple times using slippers, humiliating him. In revenge, Narasimhan's henchmen, led by a hunter Kariyan, ambush Velmurugan in the night and hack him to death, taking him away. Chidambaram witnesses this and tells his father and Murugesan, and they file a missing person case with the police.

The next day, Velmurugan's mutilated, beheaded body is found in a nearby field. The police refuses to help, as they can't confirm it's him as they can't find the head. Pachaiyamma suffers PTSD for a year after which she recovers, and holds one year death condolence for her son. Seeing the suffering caused to his family by his brother's murder, Chidambaram tails Narasimhan during one night and hacks him in his village, killing him, and escapes from his henchman using homemade bombs. The family is shocked on hearing about this from Sivasaami who witnessed Narasimhan's death and cut the lights when Chidambaram attacked, and when his son comes back that night, Murugesan tells the father and son to hide in the forest. The film switches back to the present.

One of Narasimhan's family members asks Kariyan and his men to find the two, to which they agree. Pachaiyamma, Murugesan and Lakshmi hide in a family friend, Maari's, house, and they move from there after some time as well and hide in various places. One day, Kariyan finally finds the two and tries to capture the son, but Sivasaami fights them all off, sparing their lives for unknown reasons. While the two recover near a river, Sivasaami narrates his past and explains why he no longer wants to kill anyone.

Contrary to what he told his sons, Sivasaami was actually a village-famous moonshine brewer. He worked under Viswanathan (A. Venkatesh), a rich landlord, and the latter always trusted Sivasaami. One day, he asks if his boss could employ Pandiyan (Nitish Veera), a distant relative of Viswanathan who was currently in poverty, as an accountant, to which the boss agrees. Sivasaami's brother Murugan and Venugopal Seshadri, a Communist lawyer, is trying to obtain justice for the landless labourers by filing a case against the various landlords in their village who had seized their Panchami land, including Viswanathan. Sivasaami receives various wedding proposals but all are denied after they find out about his alcohol ventures, but his relative Maariyamma convinces him to marry her, to which he agrees and they fall in love. When Sivasaami gives her sandals, Pandiyan humiliates her by forcing her to put the sandals on her head. Sivasaami retaliates by hitting him with sandals. However, Viswanathan intervenes and supports Pandiyan as they're related, and Sivasaami is saddened at the loss of trust. One night, before a meeting conducted by Seshadri and Murugan with the local farmers, news arrives that Seshadri was arrested at the train station and Sivasaami is made to go to his house to obtain the authorised documents which allowed the meeting to occur after the police come and intervene. When he comes back, many people were killed in the meeting, including Murugan, and it's revealed that Viswanathan's armed men were hiding in the crowd. Their village was also burned down by Pandiyan and his men and many people died, including Maariyamma. Enraged, Sivasaami enters his boss' home and hacks many of the men there to death, including Pandiyan and Viswanathan.

Sivasaami then reveals that he had left that village and stumbled across Murugesan, who took pity on him and taught him how to become a farmer. He's also introduced to Pachaiyamma. No one is willing to marry her as Sivasaami is staying there, and so he feels guilty and tells them that he's ready to leave if they're not fine with him staying there. He narrates his story to the two, and Pachaiyamma admires what he did to defend his family, and so she agrees to marry Sivasaami. He surrenders to the court and luckily is given a light sentence as Seshadri stated he only killed in self-defence during a communal riot. Afterwards, he marries Pachaiyamma. Chidambaram is amazed at his father's past and starts to admire him. Sivasaami reconciles with his wife and daughter briefly, and he and his son go to Seshadri for help. Seshadri agrees to help them as long as they turn up to court the next day, to which they agree.

The next day, it is revealed that the police have been stationed outside the court to arrest the father and son when they come, and Narasimhan's men are in the court premises if they manage to get past the police. The two get into the premises but escape after the men find them. Seshadri becomes angry as they didn't turn up to court and Sivasaami tells him what happened, and also says he's ready to sell his land to them to stop any more violence. Narasimhan's family members agree, and they reluctantly sell the land in presence of the village council. Chidambaram stays near a temple. However, he gets abducted and taken to the village square by Narasimhan's family to be killed, violating the Panchayat's orders. Sivasaami comes in, armed with a sickle, and single-handedly takes out many of the henchmen, including some prominent family members, but he and Chidambaram sustain serious injuries. Murugesan and their village people arrive armed and defuse the situation.

In the end, it's revealed that the two villages agreed that the conflict should end and prevented a caste clash. Sivasaami's family has gathered in the court and he has agreed to go to jail instead of Chidambaram if that's needed. He tells his son to study hard to become a powerful man, and that unlike farmland and money, the landlords can't seize their education. The film ends with Sivasaami smiling at his family as he enters the court.

The film was announced by Vetrimaaran and Dhanush in December 2018, post the success of their Vada Chennai released in the same year.[6] The duo earlier revealed plans on making a sequel to Vada Chennai but agreed to do another film before that.[7] The film marks the fourth collaboration between the actor and director after Polladhavan (2007), Aadukalam (2011), and Vada Chennai (2018).[8]

Principal photography began on 26 January 2019.[9] Manju Warrier was selected as lead actress, which marked her acting debut in Tamil. The music was composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar.[10]

The soundtrack is composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, collaborating with Dhanush and Vetrimaaran for the third time after Polladhavan and Aadukalam. The soundtrack album consists of seven songs, with lyrics written by Ekadesi, Yugabharathi, Eknath and Arunraja Kamaraj, where the first two songs from the film "Kathari Poovazhagi" and "Polladha Bhoomi" were released as singles on 28 August 2019, at a launch event held at Chennai, where Dhanush, Manju Warrier, Ammu Abirami, director Vetrimaaran, composer G. V. Prakash Kumar, and producer S. Thanu were in attendance. The third single track "Yen Minukki" was released on 25 September 2019, and the fourth track "Blood Bath" was released on 3 October 2019. The fifth track titled, "Ellu Vaya Pookalaye", was released on 6 October 2019. The sixth track, the reprised version of "Yen Minukki" was released on 13 October 2019. The final track "Kannazhagu Raththinamey" was released on 15 October 2019. The video jukebox was released on YouTube two days later after the final track was released.[11] OST of the film was released on 28 November 2019.

The first look poster was unveiled by Dhanush through his Twitter account on 21 December 2018.[12] The second look poster of the film was released on 10 January 2019.[13][14] Another poster, was released on 1 May 2019. The official trailer of the film was unveiled on 8 September 2019.[15][16][17] The film released on 4 October 2019. The satellite rights were bagged by Star Vijay and Amazon Prime Video acquired the digital rights.[18]

It is being remade in Telugu as Naarappa starring Venkatesh and directed by Srikanth Addala. Kalaipuli S. Thanu returns as the producer of the film along with Daggubati Suresh Babu under their banners V. Creations and Suresh Productions.[36]

• Asuran on IMDb