Raja Ranguski


Raja Ranguski is a 2018 Tamil-language drama thriller film written, produced and directed by Dharani Dharan. The film stars Metro Shirish and Chandini Tamilarasan, with the former playing the title role of Raja while the latter playing the title role of Ranguski, while Anupama Kumar and Kalloori Vinoth play supporting roles. The music was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, with cinematography by D. K. Yuvaa and editing by Shafiq Muhammed Ali. The film was released on 21 September 2018 and received generally positive reviews.

Plot

Raja is a police constable who lives with his colleague Baskar. He falls in love with an aspiring writer named Ranguski. He often visits Maria, a senior citizen living in a villa community who has demanded police protection as she is an antique collector and possesses many valuable things. Maria and Ranguski live in the same housing complex. Raja tries to woo Ranguski by making her prank calls in the name of a stranger and forcing her to love him instead. As Ranguski is frustrated by this, she falls in love with Raja.
To Raja's surprise, he finds that Ranguski still gets such calls from a stranger. Soon, he too gets such calls, and the caller threatens to kill Ranguski. Raja rushes to Ranguski's home to save her, but he finds out that the killer has killed Maria instead. With circumstances proving that Raja is the killer, he plans to work with Baskar and Ranguski to find the real killer. They deduce that the killer is part of the villa community too. When Raja goes to meet a photographer who claims to know who the real killer is, he finds the latter has been murdered. Raja is then arrested by CBCID officer KK. However, he manages to escape custody and reunites with Ranguski and Baskar. He tells that while at Maria's house on the day of the murder, he saw a man with a tattoo on his forearm. They then track down that man, John. John says that he went to Maria's house looking for the highly valuable Gutenberg Bible but found her already dead.
Raja then asks Ranguski to meet KK and hand over a recording of John's confession to him. They then find John dead. Raja receives a call again which seems to indicate that Ranguski has been kidnapped. Raja and Baskar are then rounded up by the police. However, Raja fights off the police and runs away to find his friend Shiva. Shiva tells him that the last location of Ranguski's phone was at a church in Cheyur. Raja visits the church and meets Maria's twin sister Mary, who reveals that Ranguski is the one who committed all the murders and framed Raja.
Meanwhile, Ranguski, in possession of the Gutenberg Bible, meets the buyers, the contact she got from John before killing him. While trying to escape with the money, she is shot by the police and dies in Raja's arms. Before dying, she reveals to Raja that she never loved him and that she used him as a pawn in order to conceal her crimes.

Cast

Production

Dharani Dharan and Shirish, who made his acting debut with Metro, announced that they would make a film together during September 2016. The following month, Yuvan Shankar Raja was signed on to work as the music composer, a move which raised the profile of the project. In late December 2016, Pooja Devariya was signed on to portray the lead female role, while the title was revealed to be Raja Ranguski, with the end of the name taken from writer Sujatha's pen name and the mosquito's name from Enthiran. Production began during the first week of January, with the team suggesting that they would shoot for two straight months to wrap up filming work. A few days after the shoot began, Devariya was replaced by Chandini Tamilarasan after the former fell ill. The team were not able to delay the shoot and subsequently opted to sign on a new actress to keep to their schedule.