Sandakozhi 2

The film begins 10 years later after the events which occurred in the prequel Sandakozhi.

Villagers of the eight village circle in Theni district plan to conduct their annual grand temple festival after failing to do so for eight years.The Grand Chieftain of 8 villages, respected Durai Ayya (Rajkiran) ensures that the festival goes on smoothly, as there could be trouble from Pechankarasi alias Pechi (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) and her brothers. Pechi's family is a distant relative of Durai and the chieftain family of one the eight villages. A small flashback eight years ago in the previous Grand festival, is shown where Pechi’s husband (Kabali Vishwanth) and his friends mistake an unfortunate accident as an insult by another village person of lower caste and later kills him. Instead, that villagers kill Pechi's husband on the same day in front of Pechi. She wants to hunt down all the males of the clan of the murderer as revenge. Everyone is killed on the same day except for 18 year Anbu (Hari Krishnan), who is accidentally saved by Durai. Pechi waits for an opportunity to kill Anbu in the next festival, while Durai's men safeguard him and pay for his education . The flashback ends there.

Balakumaran alias Balu (Vishal), the only son of Durai, returns from USA after seven years to his village and understands the situation in his village. Pechi sets the stage to kill Anbu during the temple festival, and he is constantly saved by Balu. Meanwhile, there is Sembaruthi (Keerthy Suresh), whose activities remind Balu of his ex-lover Hema (Meera Jasmine), who died unfortunately before their scheduled marriage. Despite regretting it, Balu falls for Sembaruthi, for which she reciprocates. Durai agrees to this match, but conveys it to Sembaruthi directly.

As per Durai's wishes, Anbu's UPSC attempt becomes successful, and Durai and Anbu go alone to Anbu's village to convey the result. Pechi’s men waylay them and try to attack Anbu, but Durai accidentally gets stabbed in his neck. Balu rushes and saves Durai, who receives clandestine treatment in his home. Durai requests Balu to not inform the incident to villagers, as this would result in fights and would eventually spoil the temple festival. Balu promises his comatose father that he would save Anbu as well as ensure that the festival ends smoothly.

Finally, Pechi and Balu meet in an open ground, where Pechi beats up Balu. Balu does not want to hurt Pechi and asks her to leave Anbu, for which she does not agree. When Pechi was about to kill Anbu with a sickle, her chain gets stuck in a trishul, and she accidentally loses control. Her sickle moves towards her only son's neck, but Balu holds the sickle and saves him. Pechi then realizes her grave error and decides to spare Anbu. She starts to cry and it starts to rain in the area after the 7-year drought. Durai and The villagers rejoice the end of their misfortunes.

Following the release of Anjaan in August 2014, Linguswamy took a brief sabbatical before simultaneously completing two scripts, Yenni Ezhu Naal for actor Karthi and a sequel to his successful Sandakozhi (2005) for Vishal.[4] In December 2014, it was announced that the sequel would be jointly produced by Vishal's Vishal Film Factory and Linguswamy's Thirrupathi Brothers and that production would start in 2015.[5][6] Thirrupathi Brothers later opted out of production duties after the failure of several of their films meant that they experienced financial constraints.[7] The casting process began in mid-2015, with Rajkiran retained to reprise his role from the original film alongside Vishal, while Soori was signed for a new role and D. Imman was selected as the music composer. Meera Jasmine, who played the leading female role in the 2005 film, was reported to be portraying a cameo role, while the team looked for another actress to play a leading role.[8][9] Shamili and Akshara Haasan were approached and held discussions for the role in mid-2015, but neither actress was eventually signed on.[9][10] Sathyaraj was also considered for the role of the lead antagonist, but production delays meant that the actor was not finalised.[11] Despite announcements that the film would begin shoot in August 2015, it failed to take off and Vishal stated in an interview to The Hindu that the film would not happen unless the script was better than the first.[12]

In January 2016, Vishal revealed that production would start in February and that the film would have the city of Madurai as its backdrop.[13] However during late February 2016, Vishal revealed that the film had been cancelled and blamed Linguswamy's[14] lack of commitment towards the project. The move had come after Linguswamy had agreed terms to work on a bilingual film starring Allu Arjun for Studio Green, without sorting out dates with Vishal.[15][16][17] In a turn of events in June 2016, Vishal stated that the film had been revived and that cinematographer Madhi and composer Yuvan Shankar Raja had also joined the project, replacing Imman. In due course, Linguswamy delayed his project with Allu Arjun and resumed scripting for Sandakozhi 2.[18] The team held discussions with more actresses about the lead role, first approaching Manjima Mohan, before Keerthy Suresh was finalised in December 2016.[19][20] The shoot was meant to start in January 2017 but was delayed further when Vishal chose to prioritise his commitments to filming for Mysskin's Thupparivaalan (2017).[21] Hareesh Peradi and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar were recruited in mid-2017 to portray negative roles, with the latter appearing as the wife of one of three antagonists in the script.[22][23]

The film was launched with a ceremony in Chennai on 10 August 2017, with the art directors led by Rajeevan, constructing a set resembling a festival at Binny Mills, Chennai. Due to Madhi was busy with other commitments, cinematographer K.A. Shakthivel was roped in. The set at Binny Mills was made to resemble one of Madurai’s key localities with 500 shops and a temple being erected and initial scenes for a song were shot with junior artistes.[24][25] Despite indications that the lead actors would join by late August, the film's first filming schedule only began on 20 September 2017 at Binny Mills.[26][27][28][29]

The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sun TV (India).[30]

The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and released by Sony Music India.

The film received mixed reviews.[32] A reviewer at Sify.com described the second half of the film as too dramatic, with a disappointing climax, but praised the film for having a strong father-son story, and for Suresh's "bubbly" performance.[33] The Telugu Version Pandem Kodi 2 collected a distributor share of more than 5 crores in the first weekend[34] Film Companion South wrote"All Lingusamy does is transform the broad beats of a classic drama like Thevar Magan into a masala entertainer ".[35]

• Sandakozhi 2 on IMDb