Raatchasan

<p>In the opening scene, two elderly men discover the corpse of Samyuktha, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was brutally murdered. Arun Kumar, an aspiring filmmaker passionate about psychopaths, becomes a sub-inspector in the Tamil Nadu Police under family pressure and help from his brother-in-law, CI Doss. Arun moves in with his sister Kokila, Doss, and their daughter Ammu. After an incident at school involving Ammu, Arun meets her teacher Viji and gradually befriends both her and her hearing and speech-impaired niece, Kayal. Meanwhile, Arun investigates the abduction of a schoolgirl, Amudha, and notices similarities to Samyuktha’s case, especially a mutilated doll at Amudha’s house. His superior, ACP Lakshmi, dismisses his theory. Soon after, Amudha’s corpse is found. Pathologist Dr. Nandan confirms that the same modus operandi was used. A few days later, another hearing-impaired girl, Meera, is also abducted and murdered. The investigation leads to Inbaraj, a teacher at Ammu’s new school. Inbaraj, a pedophile, is caught after a victim tips off Arun. Although he confesses to sexual abuse, he denies involvement in the murders. During an attempted escape, Inbaraj holds a policeman at gunpoint but is shot dead by Arun. That same day, Ammu is abducted from her birthday party, and her mutilated body is found in the car trunk. A devastated Arun and Doss hide the truth from Kokila and return home. Arun is suspended for his actions and begins investigating unofficially. With help from a few officers, he traces a piano tune from Meera’s hearing aid to magician Annabella George, who had performed at all the victims’ schools. Arun learns that Annabella randomly selected students during her shows, later abducting and killing them. The next target is a girl named Sanjana. Despite surveillance, she is abducted, but Arun and his team manage to rescue her. However, Annabella escapes. Arun meets retired cop Rajamanickam, who reveals Annabella’s real identity as Mary Fernandez. Her son, Christopher, has Werner Syndrome (progeria), a condition that causes premature aging. Christopher, a gifted magician and pianist, was mocked at school despite befriending a girl named Sophia. After she rejected his romantic advances due to his condition and avoided him, he was humiliated by classmates. Mary, enraged, murdered Sophia. Both were arrested but presumed dead in an accident. Rajamanickam suspects Mary may still be alive and warns Arun. But before revealing everything, he is killed. Arun finds clues suggesting that Christopher is alive and has been impersonating Mary, who actually died in the accident. Before he can inform Lakshmi, Christopher attacks Viji and kidnaps Kayal. Christopher kills Venkat and Dr. Nandan while trying to silence anyone who could expose him. Arun tracks Christopher and confronts him in a violent fight. He ultimately kills Christopher and rescues Kayal, though he is injured. The case concludes with the media reporting the end of the serial murders. Arun, now recognized, finally gets a chance to make a film about a psychopath, fulfilling his dream. Following the release of the comedy (2014), Ramkumar was keen to do a serious film to avoid being . He was inspired to write a film on a psycho killer after reading an international news story about , and spent close to a year writing a fictional screenplay to fit around the character of a psycho killer. Ramkumar initially struggled to find an actor to play the lead role of a forty-year-old man with a child, and despite working the child out of the script as a result, he still found it difficult to convince actors to sign the film. In April 2017, actor signed the project titled , which was set to be produced by of Thirukumaran Entertainment. However, soon after the actor and director dropped out of the project, and producer took the title of with him. Subsequently, throughout the production stage, the film was briefly known as and then , but neither title was kept. The former title was claimed by another Tamil film’s producers, while Ramkumar felt the latter seemed too light-hearted. Eventually, the team members managed to amicably convince Kumar to offer them the title of . Production began in November 2016, with principal photography starting in June 2017. Ramkumar chose to make the film with producer Dilli Babu and starring in July 2017. joined the cast of the film in late November 2017, with production starting thereafter. In June 2017, the title of the film was changed to . in association with T-series. composed the soundtrack and background score of . He began composing the soundtrack in early 2017. He also finished composing the theme music for the film’s in August 2018. The album features four songs composed by Ghibran and lyrics written by Umadevi, Ramkumar, Ratnakumar and GKB. One song, , was released as a single on 15 September 2018. The song written by Umadevi and rendered by Sathyaprakash and received positive reviews from music listeners. It topped into the #1 position at the , for nearly 4 weeks. Following that, a video song of the same was telecast on 30 September 2018, through channel at 4:30 p.m. . The album was released on 27 September 2018, at the , featuring the composer and other crew members present during the crew members present in the event. M Suganth from , gave a positive review for the soundtrack and stated as “a romantic melody, a genre that Ghibran is a master at. Slow and lullaby-like, the persistent strings in the background are soothing, and despite distinct arrangements, the vocals are pronounced enough to make an impact.” was released worldwide on 5 October 2018. The satellite rights of the film were sold to . It was dubbed and released in language with the same title. The digital rights of the Malayalam version belongs to . The satellite rights of the dubbed version, which was titled as ( I am a police magistrate), was sold to Star India and had a TV premiere on on 31 December 2019. The film was again telecasted a month later with full promotions on TV. gave it a 3.5/5, stating that ” is a competent thriller, for the most part. There is a tautness to the storytelling, especially until the interval block, that keeps us hooked.” Sreedhar Pillai of Firstpost, rated 3 out of 5 stars, stating that “Vishnu Vishal’s cop act is superlative but this thriller could’ve done with some trimming”. rated 3 out of 5 stars, and commented “Vishnu Vishal’s ‘ is one of the biggest releases in K-Town this week. The film is a carefully-written thriller, that has a few great moments, says our review.” called it “If you turn a blind eye to the coincidences (say, the plot point around an ) and the obvious (a suspected killer), the bulk of works. Ghibran’s terrific score is the aural equivalent of bad airplane food — it makes your tummy queasy. After and , I’m definitely pumped about what Ram Kumar has in store next”. , commented about the movie that “The film feels like a mix of all the psycho killer films you’ve seen before, but this surprisingly works for it.” After the film’s success, the makers decided to remake the film in Telugu, with actor selected to reprise the role of . But he opted out due to schedule conflicts, and was replaced by . , was selected to play the female lead, reprising ‘s role. The project was bankrolled by under the banner A Studios, and was directed by . In March 2019, the film was titled . The film was released in August 2019, to generally positive reviews. The movie is also remade by in Hindi-language which is directed by Ranjit Tiwari and stars , , and . Earlier titled , the film premiered as on on 2 September 2022.</p>