HIT: The Second Case

HIT: The Second Case is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language crime thriller film written and directed by Sailesh Kolanu. It is the second installment in the HIT Universe following HIT: The First Case (2020). The film stars Adivi Sesh, Meenakshi Chaudhary, Suhas and Rao Ramesh.

HIT: The Second Case was released on 2 December 2022 to positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success at the box office.

Plot
Ram Prasad Koduri is a carpenter who catches his wife Jhansi having extra-marital affair and feels broken. Later, Jhansi has Ram Prasad arrested on false sexual assault charges fearing being exposed by him. Despite returning home, Ram Prasad gets socially ostracised, where he builds a tree house and commits suicide.

Years later, Krishna Dev alias "KD" is a SP in the Homicidal Intervention Team (HIT) of Vishakapatnam, who is commended for his presence of mind and skill in nabbing criminals. He is in a live-in relationship with Aarya, an entrepreneur and member of a women's welfare association. A bar worker named Sanjana is butchered at her workplace after everyone leaves and her dismembered corpse is stitched back. KD is assigned the case and learns from the forensics that Sanjana's body parts were of three other woman, except her head. Through a bite mark on Sanjana's neck, it is discovered that the killer has an extra tooth. Then Police suspect Raghavudu and KD arrests him to interrogate, though he claims that he did not murder Sanjana, but refuses to divulge his alibi at the time the murder took place. Abhilash learns that the assassination attempt on Vikram Rudraraju was ordered by Vikram's superior Vishwanath, who is now dead.

Meanwhile, Aarya tells KD that she is pregnant with his child, much to the dismay of her mother. The court trial against Raghavudu ensues and due to political pressure as the brutality of murder earns criticism from the public and media, the Home Minister and KD's superior DGP Nageshwar Rao order a police encounter. KD receives a mail from an anonymous source containing a link to a prank YouTube video and is notified that Raghuvudu was in Kakinada when Sanjana was killed. He contacts Nageshwar Rao to request him to abort Raghavudu's encounter, but Nageshwar Rao refuses to oblige, frightened of the criticism that the police department would receive if everyone learns that they have caught the wrong person.

KD sets out to rescue Raghuvudu and sends the Youtube video to the journalist, who broadcasts this live. The encounter is aborted, but Raghavudu commits suicide in prison due to disgrace. Varsha informs KD that Raghavudu was with his married paramour in Kakinada during the murder and had earlier refused to disclose his location in order to protect her from being humiliated. Raghavadu's suicide sparks sarcastic "celebrations" among the people, who praised the police for the same. KD receives threats from the killer, whose next targets are Rajitha and Aarya, where he provides personal security for Aarya without revealing the truth to her while asking Rajitha to move in with her boyfriend Kumar. KD realises that the pubs use an invisible ink stamp that can be made visible with UV light on their customers as an entry pass and finds that a similar mark was found on the hand they found with Sanjana's head.

KD traces the girl named Tanya, who went missing a few months ago. Aarya informs KD that Tanya was also an active member of the women's welfare association. KD learns that the other body part belongs to Pooja, who is the former president of the same women's welfare association. Pooja's corpse was found in Hyderabad by Vikram Rudraraju. KD learns from an aged housekeeper that Jhansi, who was the president of the same association, was also brutally murdered many years ago. KD and Varsha reach Jhansi's residence and find that Jhansi and Ramprasad had a son. Later, an unknown person sets the house on fire and tries to kill KD, but he survives. KD receives a call from Nageshwar Rao, who informs him that the security given for Aarya has been removed, which leads to Aarya getting abducted.

KD and Varsha find that all the victims frequented a dental clinic owned by Rajeev Kumar Koduri, Ramprasad's son, who was depressed as his father committed suicide out of disgrace while his mother Jhansi had little remorse. Rajeev targets women from the women's association and judges all women in those associations as ill-intended and wants to kill them, starting with Jhansi. KD reaches the clinic and discovers that Rajeev is none other than Rajitha's boyfriend Kumar, who captures KD and threatens to kill Aarya. In one of his earlier cases, KD judged the criminals as dumb which annoyed Kumar and he decided to challenge KD, but he had taken it personally when KD made him burn the tree house that his father had built. KD tricks Kumar into opening the door of the clinic, where his pet dog Max mauls Kumar while KD unties himself and defeats Kumar with Varsha's assistance, injuring him fatally.

Rajitha is then revealed to have been threatened by Kumar if she did not cooperate. Varsha then reveals to have found the location of the dental clinic by using a GPS tracker she planted in KD's car. KD rejects Nageshwara Rao's offer to join HIT and files for a transfer in Telangana. He then marries Aarya. KD's replacement, Arjun Sarkaar, arrives to congratulate the couple hinting a sequel.

Production
After the success of HIT: The First Case, Nani announced a sequel in February 2021, one year after the film's release. Sailesh Kolanu who directed the first film of the franchise would be directing this. Adivi Sesh has replaced Vishwak Sen in the sequel. Nani wanted the franchise to be "concept oriented" rather than "star oriented," so he moved the setting from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh and chose Sesh as the protagonist. Meenakshi Chaudhary was cast opposite Sesh. Sen said he missed out on the sequel due to scheduling conflicts, and wished he'd be part of HIT 3 or 4. The film was then formally launched in March 2021 with a pooja ceremony. Principal photography commenced in August 2021 in Visakhapatnam. In December 2021, Nani confirmed that 90% of the shoot is completed with filming also taking place in Hyderabad. In July 2022, it was announced that the final schedule would commence in August 2022.

Music
The music of the film is composed by M. M. Srilekha and Suresh Bobbili. The film score is composed by John Stewart Eduri.

Release
HIT: The Second Case was released theatrically on 2 December 2022. Earlier, the film was scheduled to release on 29 July 2022. However, Sesh announced that the film was postponed due to the promotional works of his film Major (2022) and the film having production delays. On November 25, The film has received an A certificate because of its gruesome nature and use of profanity.

The theatrical rights of the film were sold at a cost of inr 145000000. A Hindi dubbed version was released theatrically on 30 December 2022. The film was premiered on Amazon Prime Video on 6 January 2023.

Reception
HIT: The Second Case received positive reviews from critics.

Balakrishna Ganeshan of The News Minute rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Sailesh Kolanu’s HIT 2 is one of the best-written Telugu films in recent times, with each character, scene, and dialogue having relevance to the story". Arvind V of Pinkvilla rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "The thriller, executed with aplomb by Sailesh Kolanu, wants to be a consummate whodunit, in the sense that it shifts its focus away from who committed the crime to what are the killer's motives for committing it". Manoj Kumar R of The Indian Express rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "HIT 2 is a significant improvement over the first iteration. One can only hope that Sailesh fills in the gaps in his storytelling and becomes a more refined filmmaker with HIT 3". Neeshita Nyayapati of The Times of India rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The film delivers what it promises when it comes to the gore and taking the HIT universe forward". Rotkim Rajpal of India Today rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "HIT 2 is a middling thriller that caters only to Advi Sesh but doesn’t do justice to its inherently engaging story". Sakshi Post rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and termed the film as a "gripping thriller" and wrote, If you are a fan of crime thrillers, you would surely love this. Watch it for Adivi Sesh.