Jigarthanda () is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language action comedy film written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj and produced by S. Kathiresan's Group, features Siddharth, Bobby Simha, Lakshmi Menon, Karunakaran and Guru Somasundaram. Gavemic U. Ary was the cinematographer, making his debut in Tamil cinema, and Vivek Harshan was the editor. Santhosh Narayanan composed the songs and background score.
It won two National Film Awards for Best Supporting Actor for Bobby Simha and Best Editing for Vivek Harshan.
The film was also dubbed into Telugu as Chikkadu Dorakadu in 2016. The movie was reported to be inspired by the 2006 South Korean movie A Dirty Carnival. It was remade in Kannada with the same title (2016), in Telugu as Gaddalakonda Ganesh (2019), and in Hindi as Bachchhan Paandey (2022).
A standalone sequel, Jigarthanda DoubleX, starring Raghava Lawrence and S. J. Suryah, is slated to be released on Diwali 2023.
Plot
Karthik Subramani, a short film maker, aspires to make a feature film. He participates in a talent search program (like Naalaya Iyakkunar) and is in the semifinal round. The show's two judges include a highbrow film director Mukil, who thrashes Karthik's attempt at filmmaking, and a profit-oriented producer Sundar who riles against Mukil and declares that Karthik made the best film among the contestants. Though Mukil eliminates Karthik from the contest, Sundar offers to produce a film with Karthik as the director, and both the judges storm out of the show.
The next day, Sundar is annoyed that Karthik took his words seriously and came to meet him. He is uninterested in the script that Karthik wants to film, and instead suggests that he wants to make a gangster film in the style of The Godfather, Nayakan, Goodfellas, and Thalapathi. Karthik takes this suggestion seriously and sets his mind on documenting the life of a gangster and making a film script out of it. With help from his journalist uncle, Karthik finds out about "Assault" Sethu, a ruthless gangster based in Madurai, and decides that he will make a film about Sethu's life.
Karthik travels to Madurai and enlists the help of a reluctant college friend Oorani, to conduct surveillance on Sethu and his men. Since Karthik and Oorani are afraid of approaching Sethu directly, they plot to develop contacts with two of Sethu's top henchmen. They also try to obtain information from an old shopkeeper, "Petti Kadai" Pazhani, who has been around since Sethu was a child. To get closer to Sethu, Karthik also puts up an act of reciprocating the love of Kayalvizhi, whose mother cooks for Sethu. Because of their various attempts to seek information about Sethu, they arouse the suspicion of Sethu's right-hand man Rasu, who puts an underling Sounder to watch Karthik and Oorani.
Sounder becomes good friends with Karthik, and Karthik uses his trust to plant a wireless microphone in a music player that he lends to Sounder. In a quick turn of events, Sounder is busted as a mole for an opposing gang and is killed. Sethu finds out the tap placed in the music player that Sounder was carrying and quickly locates Karthik and Oorani. When about to die at the hands of Sethu, Karthik confesses that he was spying on Sethu so that he could make a movie about his life. Sethu is enamored by the prospect of his life being portrayed on the big screen and initiates Karthik and Oorani into his gang so that they can document his life.
Sethu and his gang members boast of their crimes and take Karthik along for their gang activities. Karthik gleefully documents everything and is ecstatic that he has a fantastic story in hand for his debut movie. When he is ready to leave Madurai with all the information that he ever needed, Kayal discovers that Karthik used her for information and is vengeful. Sethu invites him for a send-off party. During the partying, Kayal remarks that Sethu should act as the main character in the gangster film about his life. Sethu takes this seriously and threatens Karthik to direct the film with Sethu playing himself on screen.