After the success of a rooted crime drama like Chithha, when SU Arunkumar announced his next to be a rustic actioner with Vikram in the lead, people were understandably surprised. However, after the release of the film, it was evident that the director was not just pushing beyond the safe confines of a genre he recently succeeded in, Arunkumar was also experimenting with the Tamil commercial cinema format. Even though he had an established cinematic approach for a mainstream actioner with a film like Sethupathi (2016), the filmmaker bet on a fresh narrative structure for Veera Dheera Sooran Part 2. He explains, “I don’t want to do the same film over and over again. I always set out to do something that is completely different from the last film I made. If I had wanted to do a film like Sethupathi, it would have invariably turned into a version of Sethupathi again.”
Veera Dheera Sooran plunges the audience into the middle of a conflict as it starts to snowball and envelop every character, inevitably pulling Kaali (Vikram) back from his retirement, with the dark tendrils of organised crime potentially affecting Kaali’s family. While the premise might be familiar enough for audiences, Arunkumar elevated the film with his unique approach of letting the story unravel on its own, extracting intrigue by burying extensive world-building underneath subtle hints. “I wanted the audience to witness the story unfolding like how you would come across an accident site while driving, where you slowly drive past and piece together what happened,” says Arunkumar, before elaborating through a scene from the climax, “In the single-shot fight sequence towards the end, the camera strictly remains within the room, along with the characters and all the fighting happens outside and we only experience it through sounds of explosion, broken window and so forth. After enough intrigue is built, the camera finally moves outside when the characters walk out of the room.” While most films typically dedicate a large amount of time to setting up the world, its characters, and their relationships, Arunkumar was confident that the audience does not need extensive information in order to form an emotional connection. He says, “The first act of a story is boring for me. I wanted to let go of setups and dive straight into the conflict, showing the intensity of the problem and how the characters react to it instead of showing you how they got there in the first place.” The filmmaker explains how this was also the reason why he kept a crucial character, Dhileep, in the shadows. While an incident surrounding Dhileep affects every major player in the story, we never see him. “When Kaali hears about the injustice meted upon Dhileep, his reaction tells you a lot about the character and how important he is to the story and I think that is enough. Dhileep is a representation of the society,” says Arunkumar.
The filmmaker also went to great lengths to depict realism, a major part of it was achieved by adding subtle blemishes to mundane events. For example, in a crucial conversation between two characters, a child trips and falls and the conversation is briefly interrupted, while this adds little to the story, Arunkumar thought it prudent to orchestrate an organic distraction in the scene. On why he wanted that, Arunkumar explains, “In real life, while we are in the middle of an important conversation, we often get interrupted by phone calls, a person passing by, or traffic sounds. An important conversation is only important to you, it doesn’t have to be for everyone around you. Only in films do we see important conversations unfolding perfectly. The real world is indifferent to what is important to us. I wanted to show that.” According to the director, the scene of the little boy tripping over went through ten takes before it looked real enough. “Everything you see in the film is staged, nothing was improvised,” he says.
Even with the seamless integration of realistic moments like that, some sections of the audience felt the interval scene, which punctuated the brief romantic backstory of Kaali and Kalaivaani (Dushara Vijayan), was tonally distant from the rustic nature of the film until then. Arunkumar says this is largely due to the audience’s preconceived notions of how an ‘action film interval’ should be. “Even though most of our films follow the three-act narrative structure of Hollywood, we still cling to the ‘interval-point-banger’ which does not exist inside the three-act structure. Maybe if the audience weren’t trained to expect a typical action film interval scene, this wouldn’t have looked tonally off.” He then adds, “The film already established the romance between Kaali and his wife in an earlier scene, but I don’t see anyone complaining about that. If that worked for you, then the interval scene shouldn’t have been a problem.” More than the narrative structure, world-building through realistic human moments, and seeming tonal shifts, what guided Arunkumar’s approach was placing Kaali as the thematic axiom of the story, fleshing out the core themes of the story through the emotional journey of the protagonist. Arunkumar says, “Every other major character in the film is still hung up on their past, gripped with vengeance. Only Kaali has moved on, and has learned to live a peaceful life through forgiveness and acceptance of his guilt.” However, what essentially pulls him back into action is his loyalty. “Kaali is like Karnan, like the song goes, ‘Senjottru kadan theerka seratha idam sernthan,’” he says. The director dissects the last scene of the film through this lens, “This is why, after everything, when he gets on the bus at the end, everyone is fast asleep while he is struggling to fall asleep because his conscience wouldn’t let him. I don’t think I could have justified a character like Kaali without a strong performer like Vikram sir.”
Even in a thematically rich film like Veera Dheera Sooran, Arunkumar still found the perfect place for a rousing fanservice moment for Vikram, with ‘Madurai Veeran Thane’ from the actors own Dhool (2003) playing at a crucial moment in the middle of a nail-biting action sequence. Unlike the criticisms for the interval scene, Arunkumar agrees with the critics who found it out of place in the film, and yet, he says, “I understand that some people felt it didn’t fit the tone of the film, and I agree, but I had a lot of fun. No one asked me to do it but I enjoyed that scene and I think, as far as fanservice goes, it was perfect.” On that note, Arunkumar also provides a clarification regarding the rumours surrounding the release delay, and his subsequent apology video. “The producers had nothing to do with it. And I wanted to do that apology video myself. Someone had to do it and I thought I should. A director is the captain of the ship and you don’t go around calling yourself a leader without stepping up to take charge, especially during tough times,” he signs off.