Sardar 2 trailer lands, and Suriya can't quite believe it

The Sardar 2 trailer is out, and it reaches back before the first film to find its villain. Chandra Bose, the spy Karthi played in the 2022 hit, ran a black-ops mission in his trainee days and believed he had closed it clean. The trailer says otherwise: the damage from that operation has been compounding for years, and it now walks back into his life as Black Dagger, a new enemy played by S.J. Suryah. Karthi returns in his dual role as father and son, with Vijay Prakash now working in the same shadow world his father never left. When the prologue launched last year, Karthi promised Sardar would be pulled into a much bigger war; the two minutes and 58 seconds released now show what that looks like. P.S. Mithran’s film hits theatres on September 10.

The structure is part prequel, part sequel. The young Chandra Bose of the trailer is a Murugan devotee recruited into an operation that goes wrong, and Malavika Mohanan appears in those past portions, with the present-day thread tying the fallout to his son. Ashika Ranganath, Yogi Babu, Achyuth Kumar, Balaji Sakthivel and Rajisha Vijayan, returning from the first film, fill out the cast.

The launch in Chennai had its own headline guest. Suriya, coming off the biggest hit of his career, watched his brother’s film take shape with something close to disbelief. “When I saw the teaser I wondered, can films like this even be made in Tamil? Is this really a Mithran film? Our film?” he said. “The story stuns you. It is built on something that actually happened in India about fifty years ago, and there are so many things in it we do not know. I have not seen a spy story told in Tamil this authentically, this truthfully, this beautifully in recent times.”

He had a word for the antagonist too. “Whatever film you make, if you want it to reach the audience even closer, that is S.J. Suryah,” he said, before turning to what the first film did for his brother. “When a character is spoken about more than the actor, that is a blessing. People talk about Sardar beyond Karthi now. Karthi is able to make films more important than mine, and I watch that with enjoyment, surprise and happiness. September 10 is going to be a celebration in theatres.” He reached further back for the family view: producer Lakshman Kumar and Karthi have been friends since kindergarten, and he remembered Karthi returning from America glued to an enormous chips packet before transforming himself for Paruthiveeran. “When people come to me and speak proudly about Karthi and his films, I feel like a father, not a brother.”

Mithran, facing reporters before the event, called this the first launch of this scale in his career and named the film’s biggest draw plainly: Karthi and S.J. Suryah acting together for the first time. He also pushed back, laughing, against the comparison already forming online. “Long before Dhurandhar, we had spy thrillers in the line of Kamal sir’s Vishwaroopam. Sardar 2 is made in that lineage. Dhurandhar is one thing and Sardar is another. Please do not crush Sardar by clubbing it with Dhurandhar.” As for the vel imagery drawing questions, he pointed out the first Sardar already had Karthi’s character as a Murugan devotee who dresses as the deity and sings; the second part simply continues it.

The night carried a milestone for its composer. Sardar 2 is Sam C.S.’s 100th film, and he placed it in the lineage of Vikram Vedha and Kaithi in his own filmography. “After many years and many struggles, I am standing at the music launch of my 100th film, and it makes me very emotional,” he said. “Usually I come to these events in a jolly mood. This one is special. The support you gave me across 99 films is enormous, and this milestone is a big push to make many more good films. That Sardar 2 became my 100th is my good fortune.”

Karthi kept his own pitch short: the second part is far bigger in scale, and it speaks to a theme he believes the present moment badly needs. Malavika Mohanan, calling Chennai her second home, flagged what her role is not. “I have no dance in this film, but there are very special stunt sequences. Doing them was a new experience, and my character is designed very differently.”

George C. Williams shoots the film, Vijay Velukutty edits, and Dhilip Subbarayan and Chethan D’souza handle the action, with S. Lakshman Kumar’s Prince Pictures producing. Nine days to September 10.