‘Kesari Chapter 2’ teaser: Akshay Kumar fights the British Empire for the victims of Jallianwala Bagh massacre

Akshay Kumar in a still from ‘Kesari Chapter 2’
| Photo Credit: Dharma Productions/YouTube

The teaser of Kesari Chapter 2, headlined by Akshay Kumar, was unveiled by the makers on Monday (March 24). Titled Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh, the film is directed by Karan Singh Tyagi and produced by Dharma Productions, Cape of Good Films and Leo Media Collective.

While the first Kesari film, set in 1897, centred on the Battle of Saragarhi, the new film is based on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre that took place on April 13, 1919, in Amritsar, Punjab. Reginald Dyer, a British Brigadier-General, ordered soldiers to fire upon an unarmed crowd of over 15,000 Indians gathered at Jallianwala Bagh on Baisakhi day. The mass had gathered to peacefully protest the unjust Rowlatt Act. The ghastly incident, one of the darkest in the nation’s history, is seen as a rallying point of the Indian freedom movement, fortifying revolutionary sentiment against British rule in India.

In the thirty-second opening of the teaser, we see no visuals, logos, or titles. “Warning: These visuals were too horrific to display,” reads a brief disclaimer, after which we hear the harrowing voices of the victims of the massacre. The gunshots and screams raise the tension in the atmosphere. “That was just thirty seconds of gunfire; British troops fired non-stop for 10 minutes in Jallianwala Bagh. And the victims were locked inside for 12 hours so vultures could feast on them,“ says a voiceover.

“From the echoes of that bloodshed, a force awakens,” adds the narration, as we see Akshay Kumar as Sir C Sankaran Nair, the fearless lawyer who dared to take on the British Empire in the wake of the national tragedy. Wearing the kada of a victim, Nair fights the British in the court of law.

Also starring R Madhavan and Ananya Panday, Kesari Chapter 2 is adapted from the book ‘The Case That Shook The Empire’, written by Pushpa Palat and Raghu Palat. The screenplay of the film is written by Tyagi and Amritpal Singh Bindra

Produced by Hiroo Yash Johar, Aruna Bhatia, Karan Johar, Adar Poonawalla, Apoorva Mehta, Amritpal Singh Bindra & Anand Tiwari, the film releases in theatres on April 18.