Chiyaan 63 Rolls: Vikram and Anand Shankar Reunite a Decade After Iru Mugan

The camera is rolling on Chiyaan 63. Sathya Jyothi Films has formally started the shoot of Vikram’s 63rd film, and the more interesting line in the announcement is who is calling the shots: Anand Shankar, back with the actor for the first time since Iru Mugan in 2016. That film gave Vikram one of his sharper genre outings of the last decade, so a reunion roughly ten years on is the kind of thing that does the marketing’s job before the marketing starts.

The first-look art, unveiled with a “cooking begins” tag at the launch, leans dark, a weathered, bearded face behind aviators, which sets the register but not the whole picture. The team is pitching Chiyaan 63 as a family thriller with action, the combination Vikram has long been comfortable in: the mass beats his fans expect, wrapped around an emotional story and a thriller screenplay built to pull in a wider audience than a straight action film would.

Around Vikram, the cast runs MS Bhaskar, Urvashi, Samyuktha Hegde, Riya Shibu, VTV Ganesh, Subash Selvam and Vishnu G. The pre-production is said to be wrapped, which is why the unit has gone into a full-tilt schedule rather than a token first-day switch-on, with the producers signalling they intend to hold to a planned timeline.

Presented by TG Thyagarajan and produced by Sendhil Thyagarajan and Arjun Thyagarajan, the film has Santhosh Narayanan on music, a composer whose sound can carry both the emotional and thriller halves the makers are promising. The technical bench is stacked: RD Rajasekar ISC behind the camera, Rajeevan on production design, Shan Karuppusamy on dialogues, Stunt Silva on action, Brinda choreographing, Raymond Derrick Crasta editing and Surya Rajeevan as art director.

Vikram has spent the last couple of years moving between heavy swings, from Thangalaan to Chiyaan 62 and Veera Dheera Sooran. Chiyaan 63 is the one that bets on him doing what he does best inside a frame built for the whole family, and with cameras already turning, the next thing to watch for is a title and a face that the poster is currently keeping in shadow.