Kolaigaran (transl. Killer) is a 2019 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film directed by Andrew Louis. The film stars Vijay Antony, Arjun and Ashima Narwal, while Nassar and Seetha play supporting roles. The music was scored by Simon K. King. Principal photography of the film commenced on 5 June 2018. The film follows an investigation in which a woman and her mother are suspected of murder after a disfigured corpse is found, while their neighbour claims to have committed it instead, much to the surprise of cops. The film was released theatrically on 7 June 2019. It opened to positive reviews and became a super hit at the box office. It is an uncredited remake of the 2012 South Korean thriller film Perfect Number, which was based on the 2005 Japanese mystery novel The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino. The title card of the movie credited the movie to have been inspired by the novels The Devotion of Suspect X and Agatha Christie's The Body in the Library. Kross Pictures, the South Korean film company which held the adaptation rights of the novel and film, sued the makers of Kolaigaran and won a copyright infringement suit in 2019. Kross Pictures later themselves released Jaane Jaan, an official Indian adaptation of the novel and film in 2023.
Plot The movie begins with the murder of a mysterious woman by an unknown person inside a house. In another scene, Prabhakaran is seen surrendering to the police. The scene shifts to Prabhakaran's past. Prabhakaran and Dharini are neighbours, and each morning, they coincidentally greet each other as they step out to their respective workplaces. Although Dharini's friend, who sees this happen every day, warns her to be careful of Prabhakaran as she suspects this is a planned execution, Dharini dismisses her opinion as paranoid. Meanwhile, a gruesome murder occurs at night in a desolate area in Chennai, where a man is killed and burned. The next day, the body is found by the locals, and a crime branch DCP Karthikeyan is assigned to the case. The police were not able to identify the murder victim due to his charred face; however, Karthikeyan finds the half-burnt tailor tag in the clothes of the victim and realises that the person is from a different city. He investigates complaints of missing guests at hotels within Chennai. From the information extracted from the tag, he discovers that the murdered man is Vamsi, the younger brother of an influential minister in Andhra Pradesh. Looking into Vamsi's background, Karthikeyan learns that Vamsi is a habitual molester who used to stalk and harass Dharini, leading Dharini and her mother Lakshmi to escape to Chennai without his knowledge two years ago. Karthikeyan starts his investigation of Dharini and Lakshmi, who admit to their past connection with Vamsi, much to Karthikeyan's surprise. Similarly, Karthikeyan investigates Prabhakaran about the whereabouts of his neighbours on the date of the murder. Meanwhile, Prabhakaran contacts Dharini via his office desk phone and asks her to do as instructed. Theoretically speaking, Karthikeyan firmly believes that the murder has something to do with Dharini and Lakshmi, and he also suspects they could not have done it on their own without a man's assistance. During his investigation, Karthikeyan also learns that Prabhakaran is a former Hyderabad-based IPS officer renowned for solving murder cases. When asked for help in solving the case, Prabhakaran says that he cannot provide any assistance. This strengthens Karthikeyan's suspicions of Prabhakaran, despite his team's opinions against the idea. In a sudden turn of events, Karthikeyan learns that Prabhakaran has surrendered for the murder. During interrogation, Prabhakaran reveals that he and Dharini are secret lovers. When Prabhakaran learns about Dharini's past with Vamsi, he wants to help Dharini and kills Vamsi without Dharini's knowledge. However, when Dharini is asked about Prabhakaran's story, she claims that she barely knows him, which leads the investigators to believe that Prabhakaran is seriously deluded. To further cement the fact that Prabhakaran is the sole murderer and Dharini and Lakshmi are innocent, a listening device is found in Prabhakaran's house to prove that it is through this he came to know about Vamsi. The tale takes its turn in the final minutes, and all of the police officers but Karthikeyan believe that the case can be closed as the murderer Prabhakaran has surrendered. Karthikeyan can not believe that Prabhakaran, a police officer who is known for solving murder cases, could make amateur mistakes when disposing of Vamsi's body. Karthikeyan ponders his suspicions that the murderers of Vamsi were indeed Dharini and Lakshmi, and thus further investigates Prabhakaran's motive to surrender instead of them. It is found that Prabhakaran lived happily with his wife, Aaradhanaa, who bore a resemblance to Dharini. Unfortunately, she was murdered by Ali, an escaped criminal, who considers himself to be Prabhakaran's enemy (as shown in the opening scene). Prabhakaran resigns from his job as a police officer and starts to search for Ali, who escaped after murdering his wife. When he learns that the murderer is in Chennai, he moves there to avenge Aaraadhanaa's death. When Dharini and Lakshmi killed Vamsi in self-defence, Prabhakaran, wanting to help Dharini as she resembles his deceased wife, plots and kills his wife's murderer the next day and conceals his body instead of Vamsi to misdirect the case investigators from suspecting Dharini and Lakshmi. Karthikeyan gains a newfound respect for Prabhakaran after learning the truth, which he decides to keep a secret.
Cast
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