Salaga (film)

Salaga is a 2021 Indian Kannada-language action thriller film directed by Duniya Vijay in his directorial debut and produced by KP Srikanth. It features Duniya Vijay himself along with Sanjana Anand, Daali Dhananjay, and Nagabhushan in prominent roles. The film was released on 14 October 2021.

Plot
In Bangalore, Slum Shetty is a gangster, who along with former gangster-turned BBMP corporator Indra and Juttu Seena are controlling the Bangalore underworld. Shetty learns that a person named Thyagaraja Ramanna is smuggling illegal arms from Mangalore Port for Salaga, who is operating from prison. Shetty sends Suri Anna to deal with him. Learning about Ramanna's attack, Salaga hires a cold-blooded gang named Batsman boys and kills Suri at a bar.

Suri's brother Kenda is enraged and vows to kill Salaga. The trio, along with Kenda, learns that Salaga is released from prison, where they attempt to kill him, but Salaga escapes and kills Kenda, with the help of Batsman boys. Salaga's childhood girlfriend Sanjana pursues Salaga to accept her love proposal, but he refuses where after much insistence, Salaga agrees. After increase in crime rates, The city commissioner appoints ACP Samrat to deal with the underworld.

Salaga tracks Seena at the market, where he along with the Batsman boys kill him. With a person named Savithri's help, Samrat tracks down the Batsman boys and kills them. Due to Seena's death, Shetty gets scared of his gang and family members, where he gets into a road accident and admitted to a hospital. Salaga reaches the hospital and kills him, where he discreetly escapes with Sanjana and surrenders at the court. Samrat interrogates Salaga who reveals his real name as Vijay Kumar and reveals his past.

Past: Vijay Kumar hails from Uttar Karnataka, and he arrives in Bangalore with his headmaster father and mother for his education. Vijay's father learns that their village people are also working as labourers in the city. He teaches their children in the city in order for them to be educated, but is ridiculed by Indra, Shetty, Seena and SI Ashwath, who makes the labourers believe their false statements about doing good for them. One day, Vijay thrashes Naga as he harassed Sanjana's friend Kavya.

Vijay gets arrested by Ashwath in charges of killing Naga, where he tries to prove his innocence to his father and mother, but to no avail. After facing the embarrassment by their people, Vijay's father and mother commits suicide, leaving Vijay devastated. Vijay is sent to a remand home where he learns that Naga was actually killed by Slum Shetty, Seena and Indra upon the request of Ashwath as he suspects Vijay to be Kavya's (Ashwath's daughter) boyfriend and also wants to embarrass Vijay's father. After his release from remand home, Vijay kills Ashwath. He is arrested again and sentenced to prison.

Present: After revealing his past to Samrat, Salaga escapes by shooting himself in his leg and blames Samrat for encounter-killing him. After the enquiry at the court, Salaga is released due to lack of evidence. Salaga tracks down Indra at a temple festival and kills him, thus avenging his parents' death. Salaga surrenders himself and is taken to prison.

Production
Filming started in Bangalore in June 2019. In October 2019, it was reported that the film was in its last leg of production.

Soundtrack
The film's background score was composed by Charan Raj, with songs composed by Naveen Sajju.

Box office
The film collected ₹15.31 crores on first week and end up grossing over ₹22 crores at Box-office. Pinkvilla reported that the film had collected inr 250000000 in 25 days and became a commercial success at the box office.