Sardar Udham Trailer Talk: Vicky Kaushal Plays A Revolutionary Freedom Fighter

The trailer of Shoojit Sircar's upcoming film Sardar Udham – starring Vicky Kaushal and Banita Sandhu – dropped earlier on Thursday. Portraying the titular role of freedom fighter Udham Singh, Kaushal returns to the digital space after Bhoot – Part One: The Haunted Ship.

The trailer begins with footage from a historic, almost forlorn-looking Punjab from the 1900s – hinting at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre – to one of a passport-sized photo of Sardar Udham being cut and fit into a passport. The simultaneous voiceover says that Indians never forgive their enemies and are capable of plotting a revenge even two decades later.

Sardar Udham Singh was a revolutionary, known for the assassination of Michael O'Dwyer – the former lieutenant governor of Punjab – in London. It was under Dwyer's tenure that the Jallianwala Bagh massacre occurred in Amritsar, in 1919. The immense tragedy and horror of the event had a deep impact on the young freedom fighter – leading to his act of revenge in 1940. He was subsequently hanged after being convicted of murder.

The trailer shifts between the sequence of events leading to the massacre, starting with the news of Mahatma Gandhi leaving Delhi to head to Amritsar, followed by his eventual arrest before he could even reach the city. There is a glimpse of a young Udham Singh getting ready in a Pathani kurta in his house in Punjab. The clips then shift to a mature Singh, now in a suit and formal jacket, reaching the UK on a boat – with a new alias, 'Mr. Sher Singh.' The film traces the freedom fighter's journey of reaching London, changing identities and aliases, tracking every move of Dwyer's to form an internal schedule in his mind, and eventually finding his way to serve his revenge – or as Kaushal's voiceover says, his sign of protest.

Directed by Sircar, written by Ritesh Shah and Shubhendu Bhattacharya, and co-produced by Rising Sun Films, the biopic releases on Amazon Prime Video on October 16.