S3

Plot

A debate occurs within an Andhra Pradesh state assembly about the long-pending murder case of Visakhapatnam city commissioner Ramakrishna. The Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh proposes recruiting Singam from Tamil Nadu to Vizag as the new DCP, by order under the CBI. As Singam arrives in Vizag station, he fends off an attack from a thug, Ravi, who works for Vizag's most influential and powerful don, Madhusudhana Reddy. Singam starts to pretend to be a corrupt cop and secretly investigates the murder of the commissioner.

Singam is followed by Vidya, a journalist disguised a student hoping to write a story on Singam. Singam had previously kept his marital status a secret to protect his wife, but after curiosity from constable Veeram, he lies and closes it as a divorce, revealing the truth only to Inspector Subba Rao. After briefly confronting Bheemli Selvam, Reddy's man who ordered the attack at the train station, Singam finds that a constable at the station has gotten sick from consuming an expired medicine tablet. With help from a paroled hacker named Murali, Singam tracks Mallaiya, who drove Ramakrishna to Vizag harbour on the night of the murder. A local schoolteacher informs Singam that a toxic smoke attack from the nearby dump killed his 32 students, including his grandchildren.

Singam realises that Ramakrishna intended to expose illegal dumping of mediwaste and electronic waste, which included recycled tablets being sold to the public and the smoke attack on the school. The garbage is being imported by Vizag Scraps owner Rajeev Krishna in exchange for free metal scrap delivery to steel companies in Australia. Mallaiya confirms that Reddy, who authorises this business in India, killed Ramakrishna to prevent him from thwarting his operation and witnessed the murder. Reddy and Rajeev's activities are supervised by a wealthy, powerful and corrupt current Commercial Minister of Australia and businessman Vittal Prasad, who receives full support from his father, Union Minister Ram Prasad.

Meanwhile, Vidya writes an article on Singam claiming that he extorted Reddy for personal gain and that he is corrupt, putting Singam's reputation on the edge. As a result, Singam has Vidya arrested and fined for discrediting him. Singam begins to eliminate and arrest criminals all over the city, including Selvam, whom he guns down. Later, Singam heads to Vizag harbour to obtain evidence from Reddy's containers, but is attacked by his men while Ravi murders the school teacher. Vittal calls Singam anonymously and threatens to use his influence to kill Singam's family if he doesn't stand down. The next day, Singam chases down Ravi and arrests Reddy. He pays a personal visit to Vittal in Australia while looking into Reddy's contacts, and confirms that he is the one behind the illegal dumping.

Production

Following the commercial success of Singam II, Hari was keen to collaborate with Suriya for another action film with a fresh script away from the Singam franchise, and agreed terms in principle with the actor in October 2014. Hari revealed that as a result of pressure from those around him, he later developed the one-line story from the film into a script for a third part of Singam. While the first film was primarily shot within Tamil Nadu and the second featured a few scenes in South Africa, Hari stated that the third part would be more "international" and would be set in three countries as the protagonist tackles a global issue.

While most of the cast was from the earlier films were retained, including Anushka Shetty, Shruti Haasan was added to the cast, while Anirudh Ravichander was signed as the music composer replacing Devi Sri Prasad. Anirudh later opted out of the project citing scheduling issues and Harris Jayaraj was brought instead. Vivek, who portrayed the police officer Erimalai in the first two films, declined to reprise his role in this film as he felt he "did not have a meaty role in it". In preparation for his role, Suriya bulked up his physique by spending more hours in the gym and by adopting a strict oil-free diet.

Principal photography, initially scheduled for December 2015, was delayed as a result of the 2015 South India floods. Production eventually began in Visakhapatnam in January 2016, and continued in places including Chennai, Karaikudi and Madurai. In March, the team moved to film song sequences in Romania. After a production break, production resumed in July in Visakhapatnam, before moving to the Talakona Forest region. The team moved to Malaysia in August to film the climax, while filming wrapped in October 2016 with a song shot in Georgia with Suriya and Haasan. In January 2017, the film was re-titled from S3 to Si3 (spelt சி3 in Tamil) to exploit the Tamil Nadu Government's then rule of entertainment tax exemption for films titled in Tamil.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is scored by Harris Jayaraj, who replaced Devi Sri Prasad as the composer of the film series. The film marks the eighth collaboration between Suriya and Harris after Kaakha Kaakha, Ghajini, Vaaranam Aayiram, Ayan, Aadhavan, 7 Aum Arivu and Maattrraan (2012). The complete album was released on 27 November 2016. While Eros Music is credited as the record label on the audio CDs, Sony Music India is credited on music streaming services.

Reviewing the album, Srivatsan of India Today stated "S3 might not be Harris' best work, but definitely not bad either. Having said that, it's a pucca (transl. Really) commercial album from the composer. Be it the songs or the theme music, the album has enough scope to pander to the B and C centers".

Release

Si3 went through several postponments before being released on 9 February 2017. The film was initially scheduled to release on 16 December 2016, but at the request of the makers of the Telugu film Dhruva, the release date was pushed to 23 December. However, it was delayed indefinitely after the team chose to allow the public of Tamil Nadu more time to recuperate from the aftermath of Cyclone Vardah and problems caused by the 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation. Prior to the film's revised release date of 26 January 2017, PETA India alleged that Suriya was trying to garner publicity for Si3 by speaking out against the organisation at the 2017 pro-jallikattu protests. Suriya subsequently filed a legal notice against PETA for the defamatory allegations. The film was pushed back even further following riots in Chennai at the end of the protests, with the producers finalising a worldwide theatrical release date of 9 February. The film had its television premiere on 1 January 2018 via Sun TV.

Reception

Critical response

Thinkal Menon of The Times of India gave 3/5 stars and wrote "Suriya, who carries the entire film on his shoulders, is in full form. This time, too, his mission ends leaving a hint that the franchise is here to stay." Manoj Kumar. R of The New Indian Express gave 3/5 and wrote "Hari maintains a sense of urgency in his films from the beginning to end, but, as a commercial film director, his storytelling methods also suffer from following a set of rules, which include frequent yawn-inducing songs, but he makes up for that formulaic approach with fast-paced narration in the scenes that follows". Baradwaj Rangan, writing for The Hindu, gave 2/5 and wrote "Loud, fast and without a single memorable moment. The Singam series is the last place to be complaining about the villain." Sify wrote, "Si3 is a cocktail of harebrained predictable plot, exhausting action scenes, slapstick comedy and a bunch of characters that are entirely forgettable, while concluding it as "loud and exhausting."

Box office

Si3 collected ₹20 crore (US$2.1 million) in domestic box office on its opening day and ₹50 crore (US$5.2 million) in 5 days of release. It collected ₹62 crore (US$6.4 million) at the worldwide box office in its opening four-day weekend. The film achieved the ₹100 crore (US$10 million) benchmark worldwide in 6 days.