Vishwaroopam II


Vishwaroopam II, or Vishwaroop II, is a 2018 Indian action thriller film made in Tamil and Hindi languages. Written and directed by Kamal Haasan, it is the sequel to Vishwaroopam and features himself alongside Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur, Pooja Kumar and Andrea Jeremiah, reprising their roles. While the first film was set in the United States, Vishwaroopam II takes place in India.
Produced by Kamal Haasan and Venu Ravichandran in Tamil, the film was promoted by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor in Hindi as Vishwaroop II. Initially planned as a late 2013 release, the film was stuck in development hell and was revived only in April 2017 when Haasan took over as producer himself.
The official first look of the film was released on 2 May 2017, the official trailer was released on 11 June 2018. Vishwaroopam II was released on 10 August 2018.

Plot

A prequel and sequel to Vishwaroopam, RAW Agent Major Wisam Ahmad Kashmiri is given the task to eliminate Al-Qaeda member Omar Qureshi and his fellow jihadis, who plan to attack New York City.
Wisam and his team travel to the UK to perform the final rites of their colleague Dawkins. Nirupama gets jealous of Ashmita's closeness with Wisam and asks her how both are related. Wisam recalls his days in Indian Army where he finds young, enthusiastic and brave young lady officer Ashmita in a parade and award ceremony. Wisam and Colonel Jagannath together finalize Ashmita for their project, and she is trained by Wisam. Wisam was chosen for the mission as he is an illegitimate son of a Pakistani and his mother is an Indian woman. Wisam and Ashmita create an impression that she is raped by him, and Wisam is jailed for 10 years for having an affair with an army woman failing to his duties. Wisam is imprisoned but subsequently escapes from the prison with the help of Jagannath. Wisam is now stamped as a wanted militant and he along with Lieutenant Roy alias Imtiaz set for their mission to join Omar's group.
Coming back to current, Wisam, Nirupama, Ashmita and Jagannath are received by Goswami, their fellow army officer, under the instructions of his superior Eshwar Iyer. On their way in the car to handover Dawkins' mortal remains to his family, they are attacked by a group of militants, and their car gets into a fatal accident. While Nirupama, Ashmita, and Jagannath are trapped in the car, Wisam is thrown out. Wisam and his team are further tracked down by a militant, and he engages in a duel to stop him and subsequently kills him. Goswami succumbs to the accident and dies happily seeing his enemy's face which used to be his wish as an army officer.
Wisam faints and is immersed in the flashback of his final encounter with Omar. Wizam and Imtiaz work together to take down the terrorist group. Though Jagannath trusts Wisam completely, his senior officer Seshadri is suspicious of Wisam, and he never conceals his suspicion of Wisam's loyalty to India. Wisam tries to place a locator to give the coordinates of the Al Qaeda's prime leader Osama to the NATO troops. Omar catches Wisam red-handed and tries to shoot him, which kills Imtiaz. Wisam escapes from Omar and signals flares for the fighter choppers. Wisam is shot heavily, and the army soldiers take him to the hospital, where he is saved eventually.
Back to the current, all the accident victims reach their hotel, where they are received by Eshwar. Eshwar and Wisam engage in an argument for killing the terrorist instead of catching him. Eshwar taunts Wisam with his religion, but Wisam says he is a proud Muslim who is willing to sacrifice his life for his country. Eshwar leaves the place angrily. Wisam and Ashmita scan the room for bugging devices and eventually break one into pieces and ask Eshwar not to try anything with them. Wisam and Nirupama get into a romantic scene but are interrupted by a call for a meeting with Jagannath, Eshwar, and an ISI agent who turns out to be Munnavar. Wisam suspects Eshwar's hand in the terrorist attack on them. Wisam, Ashmita, and Nirupama leave to scan a building along with an ISI agent in a place outside the city. Wisam and Eshwar engage in a phone call during Wisam's visit to the building to search for bombs. Eshwar insists Wisam to leave the building, but Wisam disobeys. Wisam actually left the building but pretends to have got trapped inside the building. Eshwar triggers a bomb from his cell phone and is quite happy that Wisam is killed. However, Munnavar informs that Wisam is alive, and he escapes the scene. Wisam threatens Eshwar that he has revealed himself and he would hunt him down at any cost. Eshwar commits suicide by self-shooting.
The team finds a book on tides receding timing, and they trace a 65-year flashback of how 1500 tons of weapons sent by America during the Second World War helped British troops got sunk under the sea near the London shore and how militants are trying to blow the cesium weapons underwater creating a tsunami, which can immerse London 10 to 16 meters below sea level. Nirupama dives underwater to examine the intensity of the Tsunami triggered. Wisam's acquaintance Jim is killed by a militant, and Wisam tracks him down who tries to blast the 1500-ton bomb underwater. Wisam succeeds in stopping him by killing him.
The team reaches Delhi, and Jagannath is called alone by his senior for debriefing. Wisam, Nirupama, and Ashmita reach their rooms to have rest. Nirupama gets angry on seeing Ashmita and Wisam sleeping in the same bed. She angrily leaves to a nearby coffee shop, where she overhears Jagannath's debriefing session with his senior Seshadri. Jagannath and Seshadri argue on Nirupama's role in the team. Seshadri asks him to get rid of her, but Jagannath refuses as Wisam loves her more than anything and that they are supposed to respect his feelings. Nirupama is moved by Wisam's love. She returns to him, and the two make love. Nirupama and Wisam later go to meet Wizam's mother, who is an Alzheimer's patient living in a care home. Wisam's mother could not recognize her own son but is always lamenting looking at the childhood photos of her son. Wisam feels very sad and happy simultaneously and gets emotional with his mother. He recalls his days with her during their Kathak sessions.
Ashmita and Nirupama are kidnapped by Salim. Ashmita tries to knock him down, but he kills her and sends her chopped body to Wisam. Wisam goes to Omar to free Nirupama. Wisam begs Omar to spare Nirupama, but Omar refuses as Wisam was the reason behind the death of his family members during the NATO attack. Wisam tells that his wife, son, and nephew are alive. He explains to him that he handed over them to NATO to be taken to a safe haven. Omar insists on killing Wisam but pretends to spare Nirupama. Nirupama is taken to Daryaganj, where Wisam's mother too has been kept as hostage. Omar plants a bomb on Wisam's neck with a 40-second timer. Nirupama gets devastated on seeing the bomb blast from Daryaganj. Salim tells her that to celebrate 64 years of Indian Independence, they have planted 64 bombs which would blast by an SMS. Wisam shatters the window from outside and kills Salim. A short flashback shows how Wisam escaped the bombing in a few seconds knocking everyone down and how the bomb blast burnt Omar alive. Wisam instructs his men to stop the mass bombing.
In the hospital, Wisam shows Omar's sons to Omar while Omar dies. At the end, Wisam, with Nirupama Walks out of the hospital.

Cast

Development

The film is set in India. Kamal has earlier stated that the second part will be laced with a strong mother-son sentiment. He stated that 40% of the film was shot during the making of part one itself. While part 1 was a little over 2 hours 20 minutes, the sequel's length will be less than 2 hours.

Cast and crew

Due to personal reasons, cinematographer Sanu Varghese opted out of Vishwaroopam II and was replaced by Shamdat Sainuddeen. Ghibran was signed up to compose the music. Haasan has added Waheeda Rahman and Anant Mahadevan for the sequel in addition to the main cast.

Filming

The shooting of Vishwaroopam II started in Thailand and the team shot scenes at the Bangkok airbase. There was a sequence where actors defuse bombs and engage enemies in a gun battle underwater which was done by the actors themselves after training in scuba diving. The Chennai schedule of the film started on 13 June 2013. It was also reported that an underwater fight sequence involving Kamal Haasan has been shot by stunt director Ramesh in the second week of October 2016. The film started its final schedule of shooting from 27 November 2017 at Chennai. Some promotion of the film took place on the television series Bigg Boss Tamil 2, which is hosted by Hasaan, as well as on Bigg Boss Malayalam and also in Indian Idol and Dus Ka Dum hosted by Salman Khan.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album and background score for Vishwaroopam II is composed by Ghibran, replacing Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy who composed for the first part. The lyrics for the songs of the Tamil version were written by Vairamuthu and Kamal Haasan, while the Telugu version was written by Ramajogayya Sastry, and the songs of the Hindi version were written by Prasoon Joshi and Sandeep Srivastava. The soundtrack rights for the Tamil and Telugu versions were acquired by Lahari Music, whereas the Hindi version was acquired by T-Series.
Kamal Hassan, penned and sung the song "Naanagiya Nadhimoolame" along with Kaushiki Chakraborty and Karthik Suresh Iyer, which was released as a single track by composer Ghibran, via his official Twitter account on 29 June 2018. The partial audio launch of the film was held on 30 June 2018 during the ongoing Bigg Boss Tamil 2 season. The event was telecasted on 1 July 2018, through Star Vijay. Kamal Hassan and Shruti Hassan performed the songs "Naanagiya Nadhimoolame" and "Gnyabagam Varugiradha" at the event. The latter was released a single track on 2 July 2018. While Shruti Hassan performed the song at the event, the original version of the song which was written by Vairamuthu, were rendered by Aravind Srinivas and Sarath Santhosh. The third single track "Saadhi Madham" was released on 27 July 2018. Written by Kamal Haasan and sung by Sathyaprakash and Andrea Jeremiah, the song was performed at the ongoing Bigg Boss Tamil 2 season. The full album, which consists of an EDM version of "Gnyabagam Varugiradha" and the karaoke versions of all the songs, were launched on 5 August 2018.
The soundtrack album of the Telugu version was released on 2 August 2018 at a pre-release function held at Shilpakala Vedika in Hyderabad, where the film's cast and crew attended the event. The album was made available at all digital streaming platforms.
The title track of Vishwaroop II, which was written by Prasoon Joshi and Sandeep Shrivatsava and sung by Aravind Srinivas and Sarath Santhosh, was launched on 25 July 2018. The full soundtrack album was released on 3 August 2018.

Release

Vishwaroopam II was scheduled to release in February 2014, but due to delays, Hassan postponed the release. Haasan also stated initially that the film would be released as a direct to home feature in the United States. However, he later stated that he would not, as "there seems to be a lot of reticence in that." In November, Haasan stated that he hopes to release the film by 2016, but the release of the film is on hold due to the financial crisis of the producer even though some combination scenes as well as VFX are pending. It was also reported that Haasan will complete his portions only after his remaining salary of Rs.10 crores is settled and Lyca Productions might take over the project from Aascar Ravichandran.
In February 2017, Kamal Haasan revealed that the film was on hold as Aascar Ravichandran was not able to pay the technical crew of the film. He added that over six months worth of post-production remained pending on the project.
The film was released on 10 August 2018. The satellite rights of Vishwaroopam 2 were sold to STAR Vijay.

Critical response

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Rachit Gupta of The Times of India has given 2.5 stars and summarized "Despite having some genuinely good moments, the film tries to put forth a little too much, a little too quickly.". Behindwoods given 3 stars out of 5 and said "Vishwaroopam 2 is a fitting sequel to the masterpiece". Baradwaj Rangan of Film companion said "A not-exactly-needed sequel, but a solid delivery mechanism for Kamal-isms". Raisa Nasreen of DGZ Media summarized "Kamal Haasan is heroic as the one man army". Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute said "A predictable sequel short of fresh ideas".

Box office

Vishwaroopam 2 grossed from the Tamil Nadu box office in its first 7 days.The film collected around at worldwide box office in first weekend. The film collected in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, in Karnataka and in rest of India. The domestic collection of the film was. The film is believed to be earned in overseas to at worldwide box office.