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Vetrimaaran

Vetrimaaran stands as a towering figure in the of Indian cinema, celebrated for his multifaceted contributions as a film director, producer, and screenwriter, primarily within the vibrant tapestry of Tamil cinema. As of 2021, his illustrious career has been adorned with accolades, boasting five National Film Awards, eight Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, and two Filmfare South Awards.

Born in 1975 in the culturally rich city of Cuddalore, Vetrimaaran inherited a legacy of academia. His father, Dr. V. Chitravel, a distinguished veterinary scientist, and his mother, Megala Chitravel, a respected novelist, provided the backdrop for his early years. The seeds of his cinematic journey were sown during his tenure at Loyola College, where a course on television presentation ignited his passion for the art of filmmaking.

The pivotal juncture in Vetrimaaran’s career came through his association with veteran filmmaker Balu Mahendra. Serving as one of Mahendra’s lead assistants, Vetrimaaran gleaned invaluable insights into the nuances of filmmaking. Faced with the perennial dilemma of choosing between academia and the allure of cinema, Vetrimaaran chose the latter, forsaking his academic pursuits at Loyola to chart a course into the world of films.

His directorial debut, “Polladhavan” in 2007, was a cinematic endeavor inspired by the quest for a lost bike. The film garnered acclaim, with Vetrimaaran’s directorial style drawing favorable comparisons to Balu Mahendra’s illustrious approach. The subsequent venture, “Aadukalam” (2011), delved into the intense world of cockfighting in Madurai and earned Vetrimaaran six National Film Awards, solidifying his status as a formidable directorial force.

In an expansion of his cinematic footprint, Vetrimaaran founded the Grass Root Film Company, a production house that would serve as a vehicle for his creative endeavors. “Visaranai” (2015), a film exploring the brutal hardships faced by Tamil laborers at the hands of the police, emerged as India’s official entry to the Academy Awards, shedding light on societal injustices.

The ensuing years witnessed Vetrimaaran’s continued ascendancy. Collaborations with actor Dhanush in films such as “Vada Chennai” (2018) and “Asuran” (2019) not only garnered critical acclaim but also tasted success at the box office. “Vada Chennai,” in particular, distinguished itself by portraying the narrative of a skilled carrom player ensnared in a gripping gang war. In his role as a producer, Vetrimaaran championed several noteworthy films, including “Poriyaalan” (2014) and the critically acclaimed “Kaaka Muttai” (2015). Both his directorial ventures and productions consistently received accolades, establishing him as a revered figure within the film industry.

Vetrimaaran’s creative prowess extended to the anthology “Paava Kadhaigal” (2020), where his segment, “Oor Iravu,” delved into the sensitive issue of honor killings. The segment, marked by its powerful storytelling and deft direction, earned acclaim from audiences and critics alike.

Throughout his illustrious career, Vetrimaaran’s films have been a canvas for exploring diverse themes, seamlessly blending realism with commercial elements. His ability to capture the essence of societal issues and present them cinematically has bestowed upon him the status of one of the preeminent directors in the panorama of Indian cinema.

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Why Vetrimaaran is the most interesting director in Tamil films today

Vetrimaaran is arguably among the most interesting filmmaker working in the tamil film industry. here’s documenting his rise and what it takes to be a talent like him..

His production house’s name, Grass Root Film Company, is a clear pointer to Vetrimaaran’s worldview. This Deepavali’s biggest release in Tamil Nadu is, arguably, Kodi (Flag), a political thriller he has produced that stars Dhanush in his first double role, as twin brothers. The twins may be identical but their natures are mutually exclusive. Refreshingly, Kodi casts Trisha as a feisty woman politico, giving Dhanush’s eponymous hero a run for his money.

“For a hero movie, it’s pretty decently written,” pronounces Baradwaj Rangan, film critic and associate editor at The Hindu. “There’s a conflict, there are surprises and even within a commercial film, it’s properly written and directed. It’s not some random moments strung together to get people whistling.”

The film’s premise is how politics and political interests shape communities and the quality of their life. In this case, it involves skullduggery surrounding a factory emitting toxic effluents. It could be happening not too far away from our backyards.

At the Oscars

Vetrimaaran himself, however, was conspicuous by his absence during Kodi’s promos. He has a bigger task on hand. Visaaranai (Interrogation), the part-docudrama, part-crime thriller he directed, is India’s official entry to the 89th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. So he is in the US persuading jurors take note of his film, which has some truly hairy torture scenes. The last Tamil film that made it to the Oscars was 16 years back: Hey Ram starring Kamal Haasan.

Usually, the choice of any film to represent the country at the Oscars polarises critics, but Visaaranai remains largely unchallenged. Rangan agrees. “Visaaranai was a fantastic film.”

It tells the story of innocent migrant labourers picked up and tortured by the police to extract a false confession for a fatal robbery at an influential man’s house. How the film, shot in 42 days on a Rs 2-crore budget and eventually wining three National Film Awards, got made is interesting. After his Aadukalam in 2011, Vetrimaaran had busied himself with his production ventures, Udhayam NH4, Poriyaalan and Kaaka Muttai. When he was prepared to shoot his next, the script he picked was Soodhadi, a story on gambling, proposing Dhanush in the lead role. However, the actor had to take time off to work in Balki’s Shamitabh, being shot in Mumbai.

Vetrimaaran was mooting a book adaptation when director Balu Mahendra’s assistant serendipitously presented him with Lock Up, a riveting, partly autobiographical book written by M Chandrakumar, a former autorickshaw driver. The book, which took five years to write and another four to publish, narrates his harrowing experience while in jail in (then) Andhra Pradesh.

“When I pitched the story to Dhanush, who later produced the film, I said I can only guarantee you a three-day weekend run at the box office. But it’s a low-budget venture; you’ll get your investment back,” Vetrimaaran laughs. “Dhanush was amused, but agreed to fund the project. [I thought] it’s the kind of film that would not bring in repeat audiences. I was proved wrong and it got a good three-week run.”

The author, Chandrakumar, was incarcerated for a fortnight way back in 1983. “Yet his experiences are relevant even today,” points out Vetrimaaran. “Visaaranai reflects a stark reality from which you cannot shut yourself out: that is its success. It was challenging to find the right kind of actors and locations. We employed real stuntmen who could exercise restraint while beating up the actors.”

“What was unique was that there were a lot of first-time actors in the film; that added rawness to it,” says K Hariharan, filmmaker and critic. “Actors like Samuthirakkani and Kishore were entirely on the sidelines. That made it an interesting watch.”

Astutely, the team decided to send it to international film fests right away, confident it would work with foreign audiences. Visaaranai premiered at the Orrizonti section of the 72nd Venice Film Festival, a first for a Tamil film, and won the Amnesty International Italia Award. Crucially, the European audience was exposed to a hitherto unexplored form of Tamil cinema that dealt with grim reality in a non-dramatic but powerful way.

“Europeans have a different policing system. They found my narrative a bit harsh, though they were moved,” explains Vetrimaaran.

A rooted voice

It is Vetrimaaran’s preoccupation with sometimes gritty, sometimes heartwarming reality that makes this 41-year-old one of the best filmmakers of our times.

“The best thing about the regional filmmakers is that they bring in a very ‘native’ feel,” says Rangan. “Like if I watch Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat for instance, I find [elements] that remind me of Vetrimaaran. But that’s more because these filmmakers do these ‘rooted’ things very well. They give you the sense of the atmosphere, the rhythms of life in that particular environment, they take care to bring them alive.”

His critically acclaimed debut venture, Polladhavan (Ruthless Man) in 2007, followed a lower middle-class young man’s search for his stolen bike, an exercise that takes him through the seamy underworld. Four years later came Aadukalam (Arena), a Pongal release that raked in six National Film Awards. The cockfight arena was where love, ego, honour, friendship and betrayal were played out in the rustic backdrop of Madurai.

Says Manimaran, long-time friend and assistant, “Vetri used to like watching cockfights in the neighbourhood in our hometown. So he thought we could develop a story around them.”

There was no doubt about who would play the lead. “I wrote Aadukalam keeping Dhanush in mind,” says Vetrimaaran. “As an actor, he delivers exactly what I need and sometimes more. As a producer, he offers me complete freedom and does not interfere at all. He trusts me completely.”

Rangan explains the Vetrimaaran touch, “There is a world of difference in the way he uses the song and dance elements in Polladhavan and Aadukalam. They have become more organic and rooted; they’re not fantasy elements.”

“I personally prefer Aadukalam to Visaaranai, but it’s like comparing apples and oranges,” says Hariharan. “Aadukalam had a certain kind of warmth and spontaneity. Visaaranai, to me, looked rather staged.”

He explains, “Visaaranai’s [appeal across the world] is that for the first time in Tamil cinema, you see this kind of brute reality without the director taking recourse to a love story or family drama. It’s also interesting that a country like India allowed such a strongly critical film on the system. There’s no doubt that Vetrimaaran is a bold filmmaker.”

Vetrimaaran’s productive chemistry with Dhanush has paid rich dividends. The two went on to produce Kaaka Muttai (Crow’s Egg) in 2015, a subversive film poking fun at what is regarded as cool - pizzas, in this case. This little gem, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, tracks two brothers from a Chennai slum dying to taste a pizza. Directed by M Manikandan with wit, not once is the children’s dignity compromised. Their family struggles in a heartless and corrupt city and soon we find ourselves cheering for our little heroes. Kaaka Muttai pocketed two National Film Awards.

“There is a stamp of quality that people have begun to associate with Vetrimaaran, because even the films he produces are pretty decent,” says Rangan, adding that he looks for, and gets, that certain quality.

Vetrimaaran’s genius lies in shining a light on people we would not even glance at in our rat race. His films show us that ordinary people often lead extraordinary lives if only we stop to talk to them.

Smitten by cinema

Born in Cuddalore near Puducherry and raised in Ranipet, a suburban town in Vellore district, two and a half hours from Chennai, Vetrimaaran was smitten by cinema even as a child. His mother, a writer, ran a school in the area, while his father was a veterinarian. Friends remember him as a film buff who watched every movie that came to town.

“He would bunk classes and watch them, each three or four times. Then he would come to the school ground where we used to hang out until 7:30 in the evening and would retell the whole story to us. My friends and I have actually walked out of the theatre at times because the film was nowhere as good as his narration. He still has that quality,” says Manimaran, his assistant.

Vetrimaaran was in his second year of Masters in English Literature in 1999 when the now-deceased filmmaker Balu Mahendra was invited to judge a short film contest at the Loyola College, Chennai. Shortly afterwards, he attended a seminar conducted by the director and was inspired enough to assist him in Julie Ganapathy, Athu Oru Kanaa Kaalam and the television series Kadhai Neram.

Athu Oru Kanaa Kaalam cemented his friendship with the lead actor, Dhanush, whom he describes as his best friend. While still assisting Balu Mahendra, Vetrimaaran pitched the story of Desiya Nedunchalai, and the actor readily agreed to play the lead.

Recalls Manimaran, “Producers were not hard to come by because we had Dhanush. But a few had misgivings about how Vetri would handle the project as a newcomer. So we tossed aside that script, which I later made into Udhayam NH4.”

The initial years proved to be rough. “I was pitching different scripts to different people for three years and it was the sixth producer who okayed Polladhavan,” says Vetrimaaran on his directorial debut.

Adds Manimaran, who assisted him in the project, “After the film was edited, we were really scared to show it to the producer. We kept stalling the screening telling him it may not have come out as he expected. Finally, when he saw it, he was satisfied. We were relieved and gradually grew confident.”

Pushing for excellence

When Manimaran himself forayed into direction with Udhayam NH4 in 2013, Vetrimaaran returned the favour by stepping in as producer under his banner, Grass Root Film Company. As he puts it, “I want my production house to be a platform for good, interesting ideas. I can find a producer for my films, but others, who may be first-time filmmakers, might have innovative scripts that mainstream producers might not understand. Like Kaaka Muttai for instance.

“I produce films in partnership as I may not be able to afford the entire budget. Dhanush ends up co-producing some of them as our tastes are similar. None of my producers ever ask me for the budget. I always make sure it is within their means and I can give the desired returns.”

For someone who has been successful both commercially as critically, Vetrimaaran has directed only three films in nine years. “For me, every film is a learning process. After each, I take time to unlearn. Then I find new content, learn it completely and then execute it.”

Manimaran describes his working process thus, “Many directors make changes to the script on the spot. But Vetrimaaran is different because he pays attention to detail. He puts in a lot of effort, so there may be last-minute adjustments with lighting and locations. Unlike working with other directors, you need to be available 24 hours.”

Outside of work, the father of two, who met his wife Aarthi while at college, likes to race pigeons, pretty much like the characters he portrays. His rootedness has also led him to voice the germ of an idea: setting up an organic farm eventually.

Rangan describes grit as the definitive quality of Vetrimaaran’s films, and praises his skill in animating the atmosphere in terms of the integrity of the characters, the plot, and the texture. “The way he shapes the characters and writes them, you feel that these are not [just] individual people; you get a sense of where they come from, where they belong. [They’re] not just some random characters floating around.”

His fans are already talking about his fourth film, Vada Chennai (North Chennai), an ambitious gangster trilogy he has been planning since 2003. After undergoing several changes of scripts and stars, Dhanush, Vijay Sethupathi, Amala Paul and Samuthirakkani are among those confirmed on the project that is currently under way. Slated for release next year, Vada Chennai is also bound to have the by-now classic Vetrimaaran stamp.

(Published in arrangement with GRIST Media.)

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Every Vetrimaaran Movie Ranked and Where to Watch Them

Published on.

Shaurya Singh Thapa

Official JustWatch writer

Known for his gritty crime dramas, underdog heroes, and numerous collaborations with actor Dhanush , Vetrimaaran has established himself as one of Tamil film industry’s leading directors.

If you wish to know more about the Asuran and Vidhuthalai director’s filmography, we have got you covered with a complete streaming guide that leads you to all of Vetrimaaran’s movies and information you need on where to stream them online.

Which Vetrimaaran movies should I watch first? 

The best way to watch Vetrimaaran’s movies is in the same order as their release date, as this sequence would show how the director has only improved in his craft with every passing movie. Vetrimaaran made his directorial debut in 2007 with the action thriller Polladhavan . Dhanush played the lead character, a man whose fate changes after he buys a bike and later gets it stolen. Opening to rave reviews for Dhanush’s acting and Vetrimaaran’s directing, the movie spawned numerous remakes in other languages and popularised the Bajaj Pulsar (the bike featured in the movie) among Tamil youths.

The director and actor joined forces again for the drama Aadukalam . The 2011 hit found Dhanush’s protagonist embroiled in an unattainable romance and a rooster-fighting business. The movie earned Vetrimaaran a National Award for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

While Vetrimaaran’s first two movies addressed social themes like an economic class divide, his political themes got more evident in his third film: a police thriller titled Visaranai (also released as Interrogation). The gruelling social drama revolves around the fates of two men who are forced to confess to a crime after they are locked up by the cops. The film won a National Award for Best Tamil Film and also opened much debate and discourse over the ethics of the police force in Tamil Nadu.

Visaranai’s success opened the avenues for more ambitious projects like the period gangster epic Vada Chennai , yet again starring regular collaborator Dhanush. The movie charts an underdog’s journey between rival criminal factions in a fishing community in ‘70s-era South Chennai. Vada Chennai ended on a nail biting cliffhanger, teasing the possibility of a sequel that fans still await.

With Dhanush already starring in several anti-caste dramas, Vetrimaaran cast him again in Asuran. Addressing the oppression faced by marginalised castes, Asuran starred Dhanush as a hot-headed lower-caste youth who kills an oppressive upper-caste landlord. The ensuing chaos made for a violent, powerful, and relevant watch. As is the case with many Vetrimaaran films, Asuran also earned the National Award for Best Tamil Film. 

Why is Vidhuthalai Part 1 Vetrimaaran’s best movie to watch? 

Intending to direct a two-part saga next, Vetrimaaran directed Vidhuthalai Part 1 . Set in the 1980s and inspired by real-life politics of the era, Viduthalai explores the conflict between the police and a separatist group. However, neither side is good or bad as Vetrimaaran’s story explores the morally grey areas of the policemen and their atrocities as well. Boasting impressive performances by Vijay Sethupathi and Soori, Vidhuthalai is a gripping political thriller.

Where can I watch the best Vetrimaaran movies online? 

Below you can find the latest streaming information for every Vetrimaaran movie. This includes every offer for viewers in India today.

Viduthalai: Part I

Kumaresan, a police constable, gets recruited for an operation implanted to capture Perumal Vaathiyar, who leads a separatist group dedicated to fighting against the authorities for committing atrocities against innocent village women in the name of police interrogations.

Vada Chennai

A young carrom player in North Chennai becomes a reluctant participant in a war between two feuding gangsters.

The teenage son of a farmer from an underprivileged caste kills a rich, upper caste landlord. How the pacifist farmer saves his hot-blooded son is the rest of the story.

Pandi and his friends, immigrant workers in Andhra Pradesh, are picked up by cops for a crime they never committed. And thus begins their nightmare, where they become pawns in a vicious game where the voiceless are strangled by those with power.

Pettaikaaran is famous in his town for an impeccable track record of successes in rooster fights. When one of his aides, Karuppu, goes against his word in a fight, it leads to an enmity between them.

Polladhavan

Prabhu is dejected when he learns that his bike has been stolen. He decides to find the people who stole the bike, but lands in trouble when he realises that his bike has been used to transport drugs.

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Ranking Vetrimaaran Films — From Polladhavan to Viduthalai Part 1

Ranking Vetrimaaran’s films — excluding the short films he made — can feel like picking a winner from a competition of despair. And yet, because of the artistry, his films end up challenging his own filmography; building on his flaws, adopting newer visual languages to express older tropes of a violent world. 

Beginning with Polladhavan (2007), his films increasingly hold you in a brusque, violent, and breathless chokehold. Visaranai (2016), his third and most celebrated film, which was even sent to the Academy Awards as India’s nomination, is best described as a relentless marathon of brutality. Every time you think the film has let go, like steam released from a pressure cooker, the plot tightens into lashings and screams.

That none of this violence feels gratuitous is because of how normal violence feels in the world Vetrimaaran creates on screen. When characters die, they just do. When they are violated, they just are. Is this violence repetitive? Yes. But does it feel repetitive? No, because his films are not hinged on stylized violence. He doesn’t need to find innovative ways to stage it, since his films are about the contexts in which violence begins to feel like an everyday phenomenon — brutal but, like air, everywhere. It is these contexts that keep changing — from Madurai to Vada Chennai (North Chennai), Andhra Pradesh to the forested hills of Tamil Nadu — and the violence remains unsettlingly natural to all of them. 

6) Polladhavan (2007)

The opening credit of “non-linear editor”, the voiceover narration, and the opening shot yanking you into a flashback in Polladhavan — Vetrimaaran’s debut film is preoccupied with time flipping over itself, bending, contorting, staring at a bloody present and then tracing backwards to how we reached this bloodbath. The film follows the fallout after its happy-go-lucky protagonist Prabhu (Dhanush) loses his bike, and comes in contact with first an insecure underworld and then the inefficient blackhole of the police station.  There is a visual recklessness, almost a disenchantment with stillness in the film. When the image does become still, it is usually like a jerk — either a photograph or a forceful pausing of the frame. Here is a director who refuses to be bound by conventional framing and narrative. He will bung in two narrative voiceovers — what Preston Sturgess called “narratage”. He will place the camera between two vessels on the gas, the foreground of coffee being flipped from tumbler to tumbler, with Prabhu entering from behind. 

Polladhavan is dated in the sense that you see a director struggling with his style and the template that he wants to both tap into and wreck open — the grating dream songs of love and amorous celebration in a disco, for example. Vetrimaaran himself said in an interview with Film Companion , “From Polladhavan , I learnt I should never make a film like that.”

5) Aadukalam (2011) 

We begin in the present, but return to it only in the last half hour of this film. Karuppu (Dhanush) is a masterful cockfighter, but the Othello-like machinations of jealousy lead his mentor (played by V.I.S. Jayapalan) to exact violence by slowly chipping away at Karuppu’s reputation through gossip and cross-speak. And yet, as Karuppu’s fortunes balloon, his love for his mentor is never challenged. His mentor’s rejection of him never translates to Karuppu’s resentment. It is the kind of mythological devotion Ekalavya showered on Drona — one incapable of rancour. Blind love, as director Vetrimaaran notes in an interview with Film Companion , can be most dangerous.

The “centrepiece” — where Karuppu has to make his cock fight, not once, but thrice in the dust-flung competition,— is a grunting, unending tapestry of tension. It cemented Vetrimaaran as a director with a vision that drew from the well of Cine Madurai violence while cutting against it, stamping his distinct visual style, his trademark panting exposition in the beginning and his casual irreverence towards heroism. In the first “action scene” Karuppu is given, the camera is static, staring at the fight like a spectator, watching as Dhanush’s lithe frame tries to pummel the goons.

Aadukalam ends with Karuppu escaping the scene with his Anglo-Indian lover (Taapsee Pannu), not wanting to explain himself to those who have misunderstood  him or been manipulated into believing incorrect things about him. It’s a rare, mature narrative closing that shows a protagonist who is okay being thought of as wrong, even though he was wronged. If that means keeping the memory of his mentor — who orchestrated the manipulation — unsullied, so be it. 

4) Visaranai (2015)

Visaranai felt like an aesthetic sharp-turn for Vetrimaaran, showing us that as a director, he is capable of patient storytelling, linear storylines; neat, spare flashbacks, that unfold at the pace of life, without sizzling it up or slurring it down. The only throbbing background score in the film is that of ominous rain and crickets.

Perhaps, because the film is based on events that are true and shocking, Visaranai looks as though it is “captured” and not “shot” as a film (look at these violent words used to describe cinema). It does not even have that “centrepiece” moment of bloodshed that Vetrimaaran usually places carefully somewhere in the middle. It does not need it. The film, based on accounts of police custodial violence — first in Andhra Pradesh to poor Tamil Nadu migrants, then in Tamil Nadu to a white collar auditor — yanked from M. Chandrakumar’s novel Lock Up , is brimming with blood. The centrepiece, if anything, is that moment of quiet, of silence, of hope, that comes in little snatches before it is pulled away. 

The cinematic virtue of this film is its relentless violence which never feels gratuitous. What differentiates one from another? Here is violence treated as life — without drama, without emphasis. A rare restraint that nonetheless produces horror unlike in another film — by Vetrimaaran or anyone else. 

3) Vada Chennai (2018)

With Vada Chennai , Vetrimaaran returns to the titular North Chennai where he shot his debut film. This time, however, there is more blood, more history, and more politics, and a richer, denser world full of human foibles and fumbles. The detailing is more vivid — like prisoners snorting lizard tails to get high. The violence is more structural — it telescopes its attention on a neighbourhood over time, not a group of friends like in Visaranai .  

Like Aadukalam , Vada Chennai starts with bloodshed, which it returns to in the last half-hour. Unlike Aadukalam, this structure feels perfunctory, because the beginning is almost forgotten in the blitzkrieg of rat-a-tat action centred around Anbu (Dhanush), a sincere carrom player, who gets caught in the crossfire of a gang war that he further curdles and erupts. 

This is a hypnotic movie, moving across time, back and forth, sometimes a flashback within a flashback. If you pause the film, turn and ask what year the events are taking place, it takes a moment because of how much is churning in the story. The death of M.G. Ramachandran and Rajiv Gandhi are used as temporal walking sticks to help us wade through the film. The original cut for Vada Chennai was 5.5 hours long, and the reason we feel scenes end abruptly with moments often collapsing as they begin, is because of the unsparing edit to bring it down to 2.5 hours. The action, the relentless throw of context, dialogue, and exposition, keeps you afloat, as though you were being swept away in an furiously rushing river. 

What sets Vada Chennai apart is not just Anbu as an ambivalent hero who is swept into heroism by circumstances, but a hero who is unsure of who is right and who is wrong. He expresses this moral dilemma to his wife in a moving scene. There is a sense that if this film was narrated from another perspective, it might easily flip the moral labels we have slapped on characters. That a film allows its characters this latitude is a triumph of an expanded, exploded imagination — both moral and literary. 

2) Asuran (2019)

Both Vada Chennai and Asuran are, perhaps, the most cinematic of Vetrimaaran’s films — with a slow-motion pay-off that belongs to the masala template, lodged comfortably alongside the various Vetrimaaran-isms. Both insert their intermission after a rousing action sequence that disarms you with its style and emotional punch. However, while Vada Chennai is impatient in its storytelling — by narrative design and editorial desperation — Asuran digs deeper. 

The first shot of the film, of a moon among milky clouds, crumples when feet are placed over it — we realise that we were seeing a reflection of the moon over still water, which is now being trampled over by escaping feet, that of Sivasaami (Dhanush) and his son Chidambaram (Ken Karunas). Chidambaram has just hacked the man who murdered his elder brother — an act of vengeance that dislocates his family, who are now fugitives. 

Asuran perfects a lot of Vetrimaaran’s pursuits — the mass film without the mass conventions. There is no hero entry scene. There is, instead, the intermission block. There is no hip dangling love. There is, instead, trauma and affection. Humour does not exist, distilled in the form of a separate character, like a court jester. It is baked into the exchanges. There is no beauty, no polish. There is a harsh abruptness with which scenes transition. And yet, Asuran has packed in it the most potent scenes of grief and redemptive violence. It is Vetrimaaran allowing his films to char your heart, not just your senses. The second half gives the origin for Sivasaami’s docile nature, one that he has arrived at after a youth of bloodshed that left him orphaned and without love. This mirroring of the two halves is another beautiful Vetrimaaran-ism — from the slippers, to the heroism, to the tragedy that culminates in an escape. It is easy to dismiss this film as templated, but there is a reason templates have survived the onslaught of genre, taste, and time shifts. That it is predictable does not take away from what an artist can do with and within that predictability. Asuran is Vetrimaaran’s most emotionally staining — not draining, but staining — film; its violence lingering as hurt, not horror. 

1) Viduthalai Part 1 (2023)

In one sense, Viduthalai is the culminating artistic collaboration between Vetrimaaran and cinematographer Velraj, who has lensed all of Vetrimaaran’s films except Visaranai . The opening shot of around 10 minutes takes us, in one sweeping, single take, through the debris of a train bombing. The sheer audacity of the scene, the lubricated ease with which the camera slides, both vertically and horizontally, sets the stage for Kumeresan (Soori), a kind-hearted police officer who has been sent to the forested hills as part of a police force that is trying to weed out an extremist group. It invokes awe while depicting horror. The dense prologue, the unfussy heroism of Vetrimaaran are both here. The politics is just as long winded and stiff — like how Vada Chennai questioned development, here, too, the story hinges on how the state uses development as a cover for profiteering; the police, here, too, are brutal beasts. Love comes as a reprieve — both to the character and the narrative. 

But what marks Viduthalai apart is how it makes violence seem so routine, Vetrimaaran isn’t even interested in sharpening it. There is a blunt relentlessness to it. It is not that the director can’t show violence that whips our moral sense of the world. It’s just impossible to fixate and linger on violence the way he did in the previous films. In Visaranai what was happening to a group of friends, in Asuran what was happening to a family, is, in Viduthalai happening to a whole movement of people. Vetrimaaran employs a disenchanted cutting away from these moments before their full impact is even felt, for the impact is not in its festering but in its unrelentingness.

If you notice closely, these rankings are in the order of Vetrimaaran’s filmography, suggesting that, at least artistically, he seems to be streamlining ahead, a swift, sure motion away from where he first began. 

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Viduthalai: Part 1

A police officer is recruited to capture the leader of a separatist group. A police officer is recruited to capture the leader of a separatist group. A police officer is recruited to capture the leader of a separatist group.

• Vetrimaaran
• Vijay Sethupathi
• Bhavani Sre
• 73 User reviews
• 11 Critic reviews
• 1 win & 10 nominations

Top cast 20

• Constable Kumaresan

• Perumal 'Vaathiyaar'

• Tamilarasi alias Paapa
• Head Constable Chandran

• V. Ragavendar

• Ila. Ilavarasu
• Tamilarasi's Paternal Grandmother

• Sunil Menon

• A. Subramaniyan
• (as Rajeev Menon)
• Photojournalist

• Sub-Inspector 'Chow Chow' Ramasamy

• Sub-Inspector Velmurugan
• Collector of Arumapuri District
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• Trivia It is adapted from the short story "Thunaivan" written by B. Jeyamohan.
• Goofs The film is set in the late 1980s. However, when Kumaresan is introduced by Head Constable Chandran to a tea-selling undercover militant, the SBI bank's new board design---introduced after 2017, is shown. Also, near the bank, an Activa (introduced in India in the 2000s) is parked.
• Connections Features Maithili Ennai Kathali (1986)

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• March 31, 2023 (United States)
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• Runtime 2 hours 30 minutes
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On Vetri Maaran’s 46th birthday, his five tips for becoming a filmmaker

So how does Vetri Maaran strike a fine balance between art and commerce? Hear it from the man himself.

National Award-winning filmmaker Vetri Maaran, who is celebrating his 46th birthday on Saturday, is one of the new formidable voices in Tamil cinema. A disciple of iconic director Balu Mahendra, Vetri Maaran has succeeded where his mentor didn’t. While Balu Mahendra was a revered filmmaker who made some high-quality movies, he doesn’t have many box office hits to his credits. However, Vetri Maaran is one of the most commercially successful filmmakers today.

Vetri Maaran’s last film Asuran, starring his regular star Dhanush , had grossed a whopping Rs 100 crore at the box office. It is no mean feat for a filmmaker who usually makes emotionally heavy movies, which don’t follow the established grammar of commercial cinema.

Write, write, write

“Filmmaking is writing. Keep writing scripts over and over again. I have the liberty to make a movie without writing. But, I am not sure how long I can keep doing that. It is like Sehwag hitting sixes without footwork. If you lose the form, you can’t gain it back. So, we should play like Dravid. If you have your basics right, even when you are out of form, you can still deliver what you aspire for. Everybody should write. People tell me that they get stuck in the middle and can’t complete their scripts. Somehow, you should finish the script you start. The most gratifying feeling for a scriptwriter is when that person writes ‘The End’ on the script. Right or wrong, finish the script. And you should rewrite the story at least 10 times and share it with your friends for their opinion. Write, re-write, and forget. Do something else, go back to the script and write again. Writing is the alpha and omega (of filmmaking).”

Finding great stories

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Vetri Maaran has shown a great interest in adapting Tamil literature for the big screen. His landmark films such as Visaranai and Asuran were based on Tamil novels. His upcoming films Viduthalai and Vaadivaasal are also based on existing literary materials. “Writing and cinema are two different mediums. Not all great novels have become great movies. But, some average novels have been turned into great movies. We should see whether a novel has a cinematic quality. For me, the main goal is to understand the world a novelist has created and convey the intentions of the novel in the same way as intended by the author.”

Job-satisfaction is important

“Balu Mahendra sir used to tell me that the only thing in our control is to make a movie to the best of our ability. But, the commercial success of the film is an accident. I give my 100 percent in everything I do and I also make my team do the same while making a movie. If the audience connects to the film, we are happy with it. But, we should always have full satisfaction in the job we have done.”

Location, location, location

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In Vetri Maaran’s films, the location is a character in itself. And having a clear idea about the geography of the film and establishing it at the very beginning is key to a strong narration. “I can’t tell a story without establishing the geography of the story first. For example, I would have established the geography of the village in Aadukalam when Dhanush and his friends try to escape from the police raid at the beginning of the film.”

When you become a filmmaker

Vetri Maaran believes that a person stops experiencing his life as it is the moment he becomes a filmmaker. After he or she writes her first draft, everything and everyone becomes just an idea for the script. “Learn, experience, and debate. Watch a film, argue over it and repeat. The moment you start writing a script, you are closing yourself from life’s experiences. The End you put in the first script is also the end to your life’s experiences. From then on everything becomes a source to your script. My wife used to tell me, that ‘I won’t cry, because you will turn it into a scene in your film.’ Even before she points it out, I would have kept it as a scene in the film.”

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Moscow concert attack: 'No Ukrainian involvement' in deadly attack, U.S. says

What we know.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has delivered a public address, calling the attack a barbaric act of terrorism and vowing to punish the perpetrators. He also accused Ukraine of preparing a "window" to help the suspects escape. Kyiv has staunchly denied any role in the attack.
• Russia has arrested 11 people, including all four gunmen suspected of carrying out the attack at a crowded concert venue in a Moscow suburb last night, the head of the country's Federal Security Service (FSB) has told Putin.
• At least 133 people are now known to have been killed as more bodies were found in the rubble, Russia's Investigative Committee said this morning. Men in camouflage broke into the concert hall, opened fire, and set the crowded venue ablaze. The death toll is expected to rise.
• The terror group ISIS has claimed responsibility but did not provide proof of the claim. U.S. officials confirmed to NBC News that they had been gathering intelligence for months that ISIS could mount a mass casualty attack in Russia, though no final assessment had been made yet about who was responsible. U.S. Embassy officials issued a warning earlier this month urging people to stay away from large gatherings.

Coverage on this live blog has ended.

Sunday is day of mourning in Russia after tallest building stages tribute to fallen

Dennis Romero

Sunday was declared a day of mourning in Russia for those killed in Friday night's concert attack.

Putin made the declaration during a televised address to Russians in which he discussed the nation's response to the attack, which ended with 133 killed.

Also on Sunday, Dubai's 163-floor Burj Khalifa skyscraper was lit up in the colors of Russia's flag for "several minutes" to acknowledge the country's loss, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Dubai authorities and the development company Emaar organized the tribute on the world's tallest building, the agency said.

According to United Arab Emirates state news from Emirates News Agency, other structures in the region, including the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company building, were lit up "in solidarity with Moscow."

Rescue operation over at concert hall, official says

Dusa Gambrill

Mirna Alsharif Mirna Alsharif is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

The rescue operation on the scene of the Moscow attack is over, according to Moscow Oblast Gov. Andrey Vorobyov.

The search for victims at the concert hall is ongoing.

"Today rescuers cleared a huge layer of the auditorium," Vorobyov said in a statement on Telegram. "Over the course of 24 hours, 133 bodies were pulled out from under the rubble, and the identities of 50 dead were tentatively identified."

Officials have not publicly released the identities of the 50 victims.

"At night we will start creating an opening on the western side of Crocus, this will make it easier to access the concert hall," Vorobyov said.

Ukraine had nothing to do with Russia attack, U.S. says

Michelle Acevedo

The National Security Council said today in no uncertain terms that Ukraine had nothing to do with the deadly concert attack.

"ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever," NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

In the initial hours after the attack, Putin suggested attackers were trying to escape in the direction of Ukraine. He also accused Ukraine of preparing a "window" to help suspects escape. Ukraine has staunchly denied any involvement.

Russian officials say all four suspects believed to be behind the concert shooting are in custody.

Watson noted that the United States "shared information with Russia about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow."

Yesterday, the security council said the warning was made “in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy.”

In remarks that aired days before the attacks, Putin said the West’s warnings of any potential attacks in Russia were part of an “attempt to intimidate, destabilize our country.”

Intelligence officials have been gathering information for months that suggested ISIS could mount a mass casualty attack in Russia, U.S. officials confirmed to NBC News.

Russia's president in a video address late today vowed dire consequences for the four suspects apprehended in the concert attack and anyone else involved in the violence.

"No one will be able to sow poisonous seeds of discord," Putin warned in the remarks.

He also drew on history to say, essentially, that times of hardship will only make Russia stronger. "It will be so now," he said.

29 Moscow attack victims identified

The Russian Ministry of Health has identified 29 victims of yesterday’s attack in Moscow.

The preliminary list was published by the Russian Emergency Ministry tonight. No other details about the victims, including their ages, were published.

More than 50 people who were killed in the attack have been identified so far, Moscow Oblast Gov. Andrey Vorobyov told Russian state media RIA Novosti.

'They always blame others': Zelenskyy denounces Putin for linking Ukraine to deadly Moscow attacks

Victor Sema

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to blame "someone else" for the Moscow attack.

Putin accused Ukraine of preparing a “window” to help the suspects in the attack escape.

"What happened yesterday in Moscow is obviously just Putin and the other scum trying to blame it on someone else," he said in a statement shared on Telegram. "They always have the same methods. It has happened before. There have been bombed houses, shootings, and explosions. And they always blame others."

Zelenskyy said Putin's methods are "absolutely predictable."

"They come to Ukraine, burn our cities, and try to blame Ukraine. They torture and rape our people — and they blame them," he said. "They have brought hundreds of thousands of their own terrorists here, to Ukrainian soil, to fight against us, and they don’t care what happens inside their own country."

Zelenskyy believes Putin is trying to turn the situation "in favor of his personal power."

Fire extinguished at Crocus City Hall, Russian Emergency Ministry says

Gabrielle Nolin

The fire at the Crocus City Hall has been extinguished, according to the Russian Emergency Ministry.

The ministry shared a video on Telegram of the destruction left behind by yesterday's attack in the area.

Over 130 people were killed in the attack and more than 100 are in Moscow hospitals with injuries, officials said.

Rescue workers will 'need a few more days to fully clear up the rubble' at the Crocus concert hall, Moscow official says

Rescue workers will "need a few more days to fully clear up the rubble" at the Crocus concert hall, according to Moscow Oblast Gov. Andrey Vorobyov.

"Specialists from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations — 104 people and 19 pieces of equipment — continue to clear the rubble in the concert hall and put out the remaining fires," he said in a statement shared to Telegram. "Rescuers will need a few more days to fully clear up the rubble."

Vorobyov said there is difficulty in accessing a wall that needs to be demolished in order to continue the search for victims.

"In the near future, special small equipment will arrive to help clear access and provide rescuers with passage," he said. "This will help continue the search operation."

Russian Investigative Committee to award man who allegedly neutralized one of the Moscow attack suspects

The Russian Investigative Committee will award a man who allegedly neutralized one of the suspects in yesterday's attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed over 130 people.

"A man, trying to protect his wife from terrorists who were shooting at people, attacked one of them and neutralized him," a statement on the committee's website said. "Through his active and decisive actions, he saved the lives of the people around him at that moment."

NBC News has not independently verified this information.

More than 50 people who were killed in the attack have been identified, Moscow Oblast Gov. Andrey Vorobyov told Russian state media RIA Novosti.

Russian media broadcasts videos it claims show detention, interrogation of suspects

The Associated Press

Russian media on Saturday broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app channel and paid to take part in the raid.

Russian news reports identified the gunmen as citizens of Tajikistan, a former Soviet country in Central Asia that is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan. Up to 1.5 million Tajiks have worked in Russia and many received Russian citizenship.

Putin also said that additional security measures have been imposed throughout Russia, and he declared Sunday a day of mourning.

Russia's foes weigh in with condolences for Moscow terrorism victims

Corky Siemaszko

World leaders backing Ukraine in its war with Russia weighed in Saturday with condolences and condemnations of terrorist violence in the wake of the Moscow concert hall attack.

"I strongly condemn the terrorist attack against civilians in the Crocus City Hall in Moscow claimed by the Islamic State," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X , formerly Twitter. "My thoughts are with the victims and their families during this tragic time."

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the United Kingdom condemned “in the strongest terms the deadly terrorist attack” in Moscow.

“Nothing can ever justify such horrific violence,” Cameron posted .

French President   Emmanuel Macron also went on X to express his “solidarity with the families of victims, the injured and the Russian people.”

And German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the “terrible terrorist attack on innocent concertgoers in Moscow.”

Even the leaders of countries like Poland that have for centuries viewed Russia as their enemy expressed condolences.

"Poland strongly condemns the brutal attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted . "We all grieve for the families of the victims. We hope that this terrible tragedy will not become a pretext for anyone to escalate violence and aggression."

Top U.S. diplomat calls Moscow massacre 'heinous crime'

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement Saturday condemning the deadly terrorist attack in Moscow. It reads as follows:

"The United States strongly condemns yesterday’s deadly terrorist attack in Moscow. We send our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed and all affected by this heinous crime. We condemn terrorism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the people of Russia in grieving the loss of life from this horrific event."

Putin plans to use Moscow attack to mobilize for war, historian says

Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to use yesterday's attack on Moscow as a means to mobilize for war and to repress Russian citizens, said Sergey Radchenko, a historian and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Putin has delivered a public address following the attack, and accused Ukraine of preparing a “window” to help the suspects escape. Kyiv has staunchly denied any role in the attack.

"Terrorism is a familiar threat to Russians, and Putin has a history of opportunistically using their fear of terrorism to consolidate his grip on power. (That’s a benign view, of course, but there’s no absolute need to embrace conspiracy theories to make this point)," Radchenko wrote on X .

Radchenko said Putin's goal is "clear" : "more internal repression" and "mobilization of war."

"Russia has become a giant outhouse, and things are certain to get much, much worse for Russians and for the unfortunate weakness of Russia’s terminal illness," he wrote . "To be fair, the trends have long pointed in this direction."

ISIS-K no stranger to U.S. intelligence

The terrorist organization believed to be behind the deadly Moscow concert hall attack is the same group that killed more than a dozen U.S. service members and dozens of civilians in 2021 during the American evacuation from Afghanistan.

The Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, is the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State terror group, which has publicly beheaded foreign journalists and inflicted all kinds of brutalities on captured Kurds and others in Iraq and Syria.

ISIS-K also has a penchant for going after civilians it regards as infidels, experts told NBC News in the aftermath of the surprise suicide attack that stunned the Biden administration.

In the 2021 incident, a suicide bomber set off a blast near a checkpoint where Marines were checking the documents of people being allowed into the Kabul airport to escape the Taliban takeover of the country.

Read more about ISIS-K here .

No Americans killed in Moscow attack, U.S. official says

No Americans are believed to have been killed in yesterday's attack on Moscow, according to a U.S. official.

The official also said the U.S. "has no reason to doubt the ISIS claim of responsibility" for the attack.

"It has a long-demonstrated history of targeting Russia and neighboring countries," the official said. "There are no indications of Ukrainian involvement in the attack."

Photos: Mourners in Europe pay tribute outside Russia's embassies

Russian attempts to connect Ukraine to Moscow attack are 'absolutely untenable,' Ukrainian official says

Russian attempts to connect Ukraine to yesterday's attack on Moscow are "absolutely untenable," said Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of preparing a “window” to help the suspects escape. Kyiv has staunchly denied any role in the attack.

"Ukraine has not the slightest connection to this incident," Podolyak wrote on X. "Ukraine has a full-scale war with #Russia and will solve the problem of Russia’s aggression (aggression, by the way, with a deliberate terrorist component) on the battlefield. The versions of Russian special services regarding Ukraine are absolutely untenable and absurd."

Andriy Yusov, spokesperson for the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, shared similar sentiments in remarks he delivered during the National Telethon.

"You don’t have to be a security expert to understand this," he said. "A full-scale war has been going on for over two years, border territories are full with enemy troops, special agents, representatives of intelligence services, and law enforcement. The borderline is mined, surveillance is conducted by all means, including aerial reconnaissance, from both sides. Regions like Belgorod and Kursk are currently active combat zones after the recent events."

Death toll rises to 133 people killed

The death toll from yesterday’s attack in Moscow has now risen to 133 people, officials confirmed.

The Russian Investigative Committee said more bodies were found as emergency responders cleared the rubble from the fiery attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall. The search operation at the venue is still underway.

At least 107 people, including three children, are currently in Moscow hospitals with injuries, according to Tatyana Golikova, deputy chairman of the Russian government.

The latest death toll officially marks the attack as one of the worst terrorist acts in Russia’s modern history, surpassing the casualty number of the hostage crisis at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater in 2002, where 130 people died. Over 330 people were killed in the Beslan school siege in 2004.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson appears to hit out at the West after attack

Chantal Da Silva

Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia's foreign ministry, appeared to hit out at the U.S. and the West today over yesterday's attack.

“The main point is that American authorities don’t forget how their information and political environment linked the terrorists who shot people in Crocus City Hall to the banned terrorist organization ISIS," she said in a statement posted to Telegram.

U.S. officials confirmed to NBC News that they had been gathering intelligence for months that ISIS could launch a major attack in Russia.

"Now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from persecution — Ukraine," Zakharova said. "The same country which for ten years has been turning via Western liberal regimes into a center of terrorism spread in Europe," she said, referring to findings that the attackers planned to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border after the attack.

Mikhail Sheremet, an MP of the State Duma, Russia’s lower chamber of parliament, separately accused Ukraine of possible involvement in the attack without providing any evidence, in comments made to RIA Novosti. "One shouldn’t rule out a Ukrainian trace in organizing the terrorist attack," Sheremet said.

Ukraine has staunchly denied any involvement in the attacks.

Putin says a 'window' was prepared on Ukrainian side for attackers' escape

Putin condemned yesterday's attack as a "barbaric terrorist act" in a public address today as he alleged that a "window" had been prepared "on the Ukrainian side" to help the attackers escape.

The Russian leader did not provide evidence for the claim, but cited preliminary data in Moscow's ongoing investigation into the deadly attack.

Russian officials have said the attackers were planning to escape across the Russia-Ukraine border following the assault. Kyiv has denied having any role.

Putin said medics were still fighting to save the lives of those wounded in the attack, which he said has prompted officials in Moscow and several other regions to introduce new anti-terrorism measures.

He said tomorrow, March 24, would be a national day of mourning for the more than 115 people killed.

"I express my deep, sincere condolences to everyone who lost their loved ones," he said. "The whole country, our entire nation, mourns with you."

Russians lay flower tributes for victims of the attack

People laid flowers in tribute to the victims of the attack at memorials that have popped up across Russia, as lines outside hospitals in Moscow grew with those seeking to donate blood.

'We heard shots and smelled smoke': Witnesses evacuated from city hall describe ordeal

Two people who were among many evacuated from Crocus City Hall following yesterday's attack described the harrowing ordeal as they praised first responders for helping keep everyone calm.

Nadezhda Erastova and Andrei Telnov were in the city hall for a sports dance championship, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

"We were not in the concert hall. We were in another part of the building, but we heard shots and smelled smoke," Telnov told the agency. "People, of course, were worried and scared. I myself was not in the best emotional state. Yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life, one might say."

Erastova separately told Tass that "everyone was a hero in this situation."

"They did not panic and were able to get out,” she said, praising police for escorting people to public transport safely.

Death toll rises to 115 people killed

The death toll from yesterday's attack has now risen to 115 people, officials confirmed.

The Russian Investigative Committee said more bodies were found as emergency responders cleared the rubble from the fiery attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall.

A search operation at the venue is still underway, it said.

Photos reveal extent of the destruction at burned-out concert hall

Matthew Mulligan

Photos released by Russian authorities reveal the extent of the destruction at Crocus City Hall following last night's attack.

Firefighters can be seen making their way through the burned-out concert hall, much of it in ruins in the photos taken by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.

The attack was carried out with automatic weapons, but also with "flammable liquid," which was used to set the concert hall ablaze, the Russian Investigative Committee said.

Firefighters evacuated people from the basement and roof of the building, but more than 100 people were killed in the attack.

Attackers planned to cross Russian-Ukrainian border, state media reports

Suspects in yesterday's attack intended to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border following the assault and had contacts on the Ukrainian side, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

NBC News was not immediately able to independently verify the reporting. It is not clear how the attackers planned to cross the border, an endeavor that would have been complicated by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, without providing any proof. Kyiv has explicitly denied any role in the assault.

“Ukraine certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions in the Crocus City Hall," Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in a statement on X yesterday, adding: "It makes no sense whatsoever."

Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military intelligence directorate, separately told the BBC the border area with Ukraine is “full of special services and military."

"Also the latest events in Belgorod region and Kursk — where there is military activity — mean this is a front line," Yusov noted, adding: “To suggest the suspects were heading to Ukraine would suggest they were stupid or suicidal.”

At least 115 people hospitalized, including 5 children, officials say

At least 115 people were hospitalized in connection with yesterday's attack, including five children, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said, according to Tass.

At least 60 people are in severe condition, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said separately, according to the Russian state news agency. She said almost all necessary surgeries had been performed.

11 people reportedly detained in connection with attack 

At least 11 people have been detained in connection with yesterday's attack, including four people directly involved, the Kremlin said.

Alexander Bortnikov, director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) informed Putin of the detentions, it said.

Bortnikov also updated the Russian president on the FSB's efforts to identify the accomplices of those who carried out the attack.

Death toll rises to 93, expected to increase

Aurora Almendral Aurora Almendral is a London-based editor with NBC News Digital.

Russia's Investigative Committee said this morning that the number of people confirmed dead in last night's attack has risen to 93, and said "the death toll will rise further."

According to preliminary data, the causes of death were gunshot wounds and "poisoning by combustion products," the Investigative Committee said.

Three children among those killed, state media reports

Three children were among the more than 60 people killed in yesterday’s attack at Crocus City Hall, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing the Russian Ministry of Health.

Officials have warned that the death toll connected to the deadly incident may increase as the investigation continues.

Moscow bloodshed comes two decades after some of worst attacks in Russia

Phil Helsel

The attack in Moscow is the latest in a series of deadly terror attacks in the country since the 2000s.

In 2004, militants from Chechnya and elsewhere took hostages at a school in Beslan in southern Russia.

The militants demanded a withdrawal from Chechnya. Hostages were kept in a gymnasium, and 334 died — half of them children — when gunfire and explosions erupted when it was stormed. Hostages’ families were critical of the rescue operation. Russian prosecutors later cleared authorities .

Two years prior, in 2002, Chechen separatists attacked the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow and took more than 700 people hostage. Russian forces used gas, and 129 hostages died. The attackers were killed.

More recently, in 2017, a suicide bomber from Kyrgyzstan killed 15 people as well as himself in an attack on a St. Petersburg subway. In 2013, two bombers killed a combined 34 people in attacks on a railway station and a trolleybus in Volgograd.

The group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attacks Friday at the Crocus City Hall venue.

Putin wishes victims well, deputy prime minister say

President Vladimir Putin is thinking of those injured in today’s attack and thanked doctors, a Russian government official said, according to state media.

State media Tass reported that “Putin wished all those injured in the emergency at Crocus City Hall to recover and conveyed his gratitude to the doctors, Golikova said,” referring to Tatiana Golikova, deputy prime minister for social policy, labor, health and pension provision.

U.S. warned Russia about planned terrorist attack in Moscow, NSC says

Monica Alba

The United States shared information about a potential terrorist attack in Moscow with Russia’s government earlier this month, a spokesperson for the National Security Council said.

The U.S. Embassy in Russia on March 7 warned U.S. citizens to avoid crowds and said it was monitoring reports that extremists might attack large gatherings in Moscow.

“Earlier this month, the U.S. Government had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow — potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts — which prompted the State Department to issue a public advisory to Americans in Russia,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

“The U.S. Government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy,” Watson said.

Putin recently dismissed ‘provocative’ warning about potential attacks

In remarks that aired three days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West of “provocative statements” about potential terror attacks in Russia, and dismissed them.

“I’ll remind you of recent, let’s say directly, provocative statements of certain official Western structures about potential terror attacks in Russia,” Putin said.

“All of this looks like obvious blackmail and an attempt to intimidate, destabilize our country,” he said before the state security agency FSB.

Putin in those remarks did not specify a country or warning. The U.S. Embassy in Russia on March 7 warned U.S. citizens to avoid crowds .

“The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours,” the U.S. Embassy warned.

Some Moscow concertgoers filmed events as they unfolded Friday night, when gunmen opened fire inside a theater and people ran to take cover in fear for their lives.