OM Trailer: Dhanush goes undercover in the Red Sandalwood mafia, watch

The makers of O.M: Chapter 1, Udhiram: The Blood Wood have released the film’s trailer on Friday, a week before its scheduled theatrical release on November 20.

The nearly three-minute trailer reveals the full scope of Rajkumar Periasamy’s red sandalwood smuggling drama for the first time, with Dhanush as a Tamil Nadu Special Task Force officer who goes undercover as a woodcutter inside the syndicate, Sai Pallavi as IPS officer Nithya Reddy heading Andhra Pradesh’s Exclusive Special Task Force and Mammootty as Siya, a grey-shaded figure who appears to control the trade from the shadows.

The trailer establishes the film’s setting between two temple towns in the Seshachalam forest region of Andhra Pradesh, where the illegal red sandalwood trade operates. The story centres on a joint operation by the Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu police forces to dismantle the smuggling network.

Dhanush’s character is part of Tamil Nadu’s Organized Crime Intelligence Unit. He goes undercover as a woodcutter, embedding himself within the smuggling syndicate to identify the people running it from the top. The trailer shows him in the forests, cutting wood, moving with the smugglers and earning their trust. But it also introduces a deliberate ambiguity. Several shots show Dhanush appearing to fight against the police, raising the question of how deep the cover runs.

Sai Pallavi’s Nithya Reddy heads Operation Mole, which the full title’s abbreviation O.M appears to stand for. The biggest reveal is Mammootty’s character. He plays Siya, and from what the trailer shows, Siya appears to be a politician who controls the red sandalwood trade from behind the scenes.

Red sanders, found primarily in the Seshachalam hills of Andhra Pradesh’s Kadapa district, is among the rarest and most expensive woods in the world, with high demand in China and Japan. The smuggling trade has historically drawn thousands of labourers from economically vulnerable communities in northern Tamil Nadu into dangerous and often fatal work in the forests.

Also Read: Sai Pallavi takes on red sandalwood syndicate in Dhanush’s OM, watch promo

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Rajkumar Periasamy has previously revealed to Galatta Plus that O.M’s story was inspired in part by a real incident from 2014 involving a 30-second video of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl at a ceremony, an image that stayed with him for over a decade before becoming the emotional foundation of the script.

Why was O.M postponed?

O.M was originally scheduled to release on October 16 but was postponed by Dhanush, who is also producing the film, out of respect for Rajinikanth’s Jailer 2, which was arriving on October 15. “Our superstar, Rajinikanth sir, the man whom we have all admired and worshipped over the years, has his film arriving on October 15, just a day before ours. Out of immense respect for him, we have decided to postpone the release of our film,” Dhanush wrote on X at the time. He also avoided the Diwali window to give clear space to Suriya’s Scene.

About O.M

O.M: Chapter 1, Udhiram: The Blood Wood is written and directed by Rajkumar Periasamy, who won the National Award for Best Director for Amaran. The film stars Dhanush, Mammootty, Sai Pallavi as IPS officer Nithya Reddy, and Sreeleela. The film is produced by Dhanush, Shraddha Agrawal and Azmat Jagmag under Wunderbar Films and RTake Studios.

OM will release worldwide on November 20 in Tamil, with dubbed versions in Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada.