# Sarabham

Sarabham (transl. Lion Bird; lit. 'Sharabha') is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language neo-noir mystery film directed by Arun Mohan and produced by C. V. Kumar under his banner Thirukumaran Entertainment. The film features Naveen Chandra, Salony Luthra, and Aadukalam Naren. The music was composed by Britto Michael with cinematography by Krishnan Vasant and editing by Leo John Paul. The film was released on 1 August 2014. It is an uncredited remake of the 2003 Japanese thriller Game, which was based on a Keigo Higashino novel.

## Plot

Vikram is a young project manager at an architecture firm in Chennai. Though he leads an honest life, he maintains that it is not wrong to do something illegal for money as long as he does not get caught. One day, he goes to his firm's biggest client, Chandrasekar to present an ambitious theme park project plan that he had been preparing for months. It is then that Vikram and his colleague see Chandrasekar's rebellious daughter enter the office to demand money, embarrassing him in front of everyone. Having lost his composure, Chandrasekar coldly rejects Vikram's plan. Vikram gets drunk and then goes to Chandrasekar's beach house to vandalise it. There, he sees Chandrasekar's daughter running away. Vikram follows her to a nearby hotel and confronts her about her father's behaviour.
The woman introduces herself as Shruti and reveals that she dislikes her father just as much as Vikram does because he is a materialistic corporate man. Shruti follows Vikram home, where she proposes that he pretend to abduct her in order to extort a ransom from Chandrasekar. Vikram initially refuses. However, he learns from his superior at work the next day that Chandrasekar had a change of heart and has approved his theme park plan on the condition that the firm has a more experienced project manager head the project. Vikram becomes ever more furious when his archenemy at the firm is chosen to lead the project and finally agrees to Shruti's plan. Together, Vikram and Shruti easily extort all the black money that Chandrasekar has been hiding away from the income tax department. He then sends Shruti back home safely while promising to keep her share of the money for her while she prepares her passport and visa to run away to Australia.
The next day, Vikram learns from the news that a young girl's body resembling Chandrasekar's daughter has been found washed up at the beach. As Vikram panics, Chandrasekar and Shruti walk into his apartment. Chandrasekar then reveals that the rebellious daughter Vikram saw the other day at his office was actually Shruti's twin Sanjana (Salony Luthra). Shruti accidentally killed Sanjana while trying to stop the latter from taking drugs. That was when she ran away from home and ended up with Vikram. Her father then calls her up and forces her to help him frame Vikram instead. This was why Chandrasekar approved Vikram's plan out of the blue and then had another project manager hired to further provoke him to have revenge. Chandrasekar then takes back his ransom money in return for not having Vikram arrested by the police for Sanjana's so-called kidnapping and murder.
Furious that he has been played, Vikram decides to actually kidnap Shruti for the money. He sees her leaving her father's beach house and takes her away forcefully. He has Chandrasekar bring his money to a warehouse in exchange for Shruti. At the warehouse, Chandrasekar brings a gang along for protection and Vikram has to fight them off. However, it is revealed that Shruti is actually Sanjana all along, and it was Shruti who was killed during their struggle. Knowing that their father would not support her, she pretended to be Shruti all along and had the real Shruti's body look like her instead. Seeing that her father never loved her and was instead happy she had died, she kills him in cold blood and splits the ransom money with Vikram. Sanjana then continues pretending to be Shruti and explains to the police that it was her own father who kidnapped and killed his drug addict daughter with the help of the gang to save his reputation. The gang then goes into hiding for a crime they did not commit. Meanwhile, Sanjana takes over Chandrasekar's company and hires Vikram as the project leader.

## Cast

* Naveen Chandra as Vikram
* Salony Luthra as Shruti Chandrasekar & Sanjana Chandrasekar
* Aadukalam Naren as Chandrasekar
* Kadhal Kannan as Sreenivasan
* Boys Rajan as Swaminathan, Vikram's boss
* Shankar Narayanan as Kumar
* Thilak as Thilak
* Sam Anton as Vikram's coworker
* Sakthi as Santhosh
* Sai Dheena as Sekhar, rowdy
* Vijay Muthu as Rowdy
* Murugaraj as Rowdy
* Suresh as Rowdy
* R. Ganesan as Assistant Commissioner

## Production

Sarabham is the directorial debut of Arun Mohan, son of actor Anu Mohan. Salony Luthra, then a Delhi-based model, was picked after an audition from a hundred artistes. The film was completed in 29 days, one day ahead of schedule, with the team working five days straight. Digital intermediate work was completed in June 2014.

## Soundtrack

The music was composed by Britto Michael. The audio was launched on 18 June 2024.

## Reception

Baradwaj Rangan, writing for The Hindu described the film as "a good story, but what about the rest?". S. Saraswathi of Rediff.com noted "The film does not get boring, but the thrill element is definitely missing", praising the debutant director; while Sify wrote "Sarabham is a perfect weekend watch", highlighting Luthra's performance as "long-lasting".