Retro Director Kartik Subbaraj Reveals Suriya-Pooja Hedge's Movie Has Romance At Its Centre

News18

23-04-2025

Karthik Subbaraj opened up about the genre of Suriya and Pooja Hedge's upcoming movie Retro.
Director Karthik Subbaraj's Retro, starring Suriya and Pooja Hegde in lead roles, has been garnering much attention on its recently released trailer video. The 2-minutes 42-second video has already broken the internet with gripping glimpses of the movie featuring 'Love, Laughter and War". From Suriya's macho looks, plenty of action scenes and his chemistry with Hedge, fans went gaga with the upcoming movie. In contrast to the previously assumed genre of the movie as 'gangster and action', the director recently clarified it has romance at its centre.
In a recent chat, Karthik Subbaraj refuted all rumours about his upcoming movie, Retro's genre and revealed that it is a love story. Confirming his statement, the director, known for his action movies like Jigarthanda, Jagame Thandhiram and Petta, mentioned that he wanted to try something new. 'It doesn't feature a gangster story. This is the first time I am doing a love story. Although I had explored (romantic) relationships in my previous films too, this one is conceived as a man-woman love story. At the same time, it also has a lot of action; but the movie is not about a gangster," he said to Galatta Plus.
In the same conversation, the director drew a comparison between his last directorial Mahaan, released in 2022 alongside Retro and mentioned that the latter doesn't even fall into the same bracket of action or gangster orientation.
Talking further about the upcoming romantic actioner Retro, Subbaraj said, 'I got to explore the emotion of love more in this film," adding, 'This, I would say, is my full-fledged love story." He even expressed his gratitude towards the soulful music and on-screen chemistry portrayed by Suriya and Pooja that helped his visualisation to come true.
Afterwards, the Game Changer director revealed that surprisingly this wasn't the first script he narrated to Suriya. 'I met him once 2-3 years ago; but it was another script that I narrated to him then. He liked that one too. However, I was working on Mahaan at that time. After that (once Karthik became free), he had some film commitments. And then I started Jigarthanda DoubleX. I met with him again after completing DoubleX. Since the project we had already shaken hands on required more pre-production work, we decided to keep it for later," he recalled.
Subbaraj continued explaining how the lead actor was on-board with the movie, 'Suriya asked me if I had any other script and shared that he wanted to try out something new that deviated from the kind of work that he had been doing till that point. I had the crux of Retro's script then itself; I had noted down the idea beforehand. I gave him that to read, and he liked it a lot. Then he gave a suggestion that I liked a lot. Pointing out that it had too many mass action elements, Suriya suggested making the lead character more grounded and vulnerable. I liked that and wrote another version of the script. We commenced the project soon afterwards."
Suriya and Pooja Hedge's action-cum-adventure genre movie Retro is scheduled for a release on May 1.
First Published: