Ko

Story:

Ko is a 2011 Indian Tamil-language political action thriller film directed by K. V. Anand, and written by Anand and the duo Suresh and Balakrishnan. The film stars Jiiva, Ajmal Ameer, Karthika Nair (in her major Tamil debut), and Piaa Bajpai in lead roles, while Prakash Raj and Kota Srinivasa Rao appear in supporting roles. The film follows Ashwin (Jiiva), a photojournalist working for Dina Anjal who covers the Tamil Nadu State Election. The core plot of the movie was reported to be based on the 2009 movie State of Play.

PLOT

Ashwin Kumar is a photojournalist working for the private newspaper Dina Anjal. He witnesses Naxalites robbing a local bank. He chases them and manages to click photos of the robbers. When he tries to escape, he is stopped by a woman Renuka ‘Renu’, who assumes he is the culprit and helps the robbers take his camera. However, he is able to secure the camera’s memory card. The police catch Ashwin, and to prove that he is a press photographer, he shows the photos to them. The police identify everyone except the gang leader (whose face is covered by a mask). At his office, he again meets Renu, who has newly joined as an article editor. He slowly falls in love with Renu. Saraswathi ‘Saro’ also works in his office and has feelings for Ashwin, who does not reciprocate.

Settled in her new job, Renu writes a cover story about a politician Aalavandhan, describing his attempt to marry a minor. Enraged by this, Aalavandhan barges into the newspaper office and shouts at Renu. The audio recording of her interview disappears (courtesy of Aalavandhan), and she is fired from her job for falsified reporting. Ashwin later risks his life to capture the pictures of Aalavandhan, who actually engages in child marriage in a temple at midnight. Later the story with the photos is printed in their newspaper, and this makes Renu reciprocate Ashwin’s love. Saro is initially jealous of the love between Ashwin and Renu but later accepts it and gets over Ashwin. Meanwhile, Vasanthan Perumal, an engineer and recent graduate, strives hard to enter politics by contesting in the upcoming election. He is contesting against more experienced politicians who capture the people by giving freebies and money.
Nobody cares about Vasanthan and his team of graduates, who promise a healthy government to people. Their party name is Siragugal. Ashwin and Renu find out about Vasanthan’s election campaign, and they and the entire Dina Anjal team extend their support to the campaign, covering it extensively, much to the chagrin of Aalavandhan and the CM Yogeswaran. One night, Vasanthan’s party organizes an election campaign meeting. While photographing the event, Ashwin receives a text message from Saro that states there is a bomb underneath the stage where Vasanthan is speaking. Ashwin manages to save Vasanthan just before the bomb explodes. Later, Ashwin finds Saro fatally wounded near the blast site. Saro struggles to tell something to Ashwin and Renu before she dies. Ashwin, through a video clip recorded by another photographer, discovers that Saro was intentionally killed by someone. He later notices a resemblance between the leader of the bank robbery and this unknown killer, concluding that the Naxalite leader killed Saro.

A few days later, Renu notices that Vasanthan’s photo in their newspaper was cut from a college class photo, where Ashwin is also present. It is revealed that Vasanthan is Ashwin’s former college mate. Confronted by Renu, Ashwin tells her that he and Vasanthan studied in the same college and were best friends. He also tells her that he is happy for Vasanthan’s success and is wholeheartedly supporting his election campaign. In the election, Vasanthan’s party wins by a huge majority, and Vasanthan becomes the Chief Minister. He orders the release of 20 Naxals on Republic Day, citing humanity. Shocked on hearing this news, Ashwin rushes to the secretariat to meet Vasanthan. In Vasanthan’s office, Ashwin notices that the Naxalite leader who killed Saro is there, talking with Vasanthan. Ashwin airs his grievances to Vasanthan, who ignores him. Ashwin follows the leader to his hideout.
At the same time, Vasanthan orders the Tamil Nadu Police (T.N.P) to go kill the Naxals at their hideout, and the commandos surround the perimeter of that place. Ashwin, already at the hideout, confronts the Naxalite leader Kadhir, and finds out from him that Vasanthan had made a deal with the Naxalites to help him win the election. They orchestrated events such as the burning of a hut and saving the woman in that hut (who was also a Naxalite) to win people’s sympathy. In the same vein, they had planted a bomb on the stage where Vasanthan was speaking during his meeting. Saro had found out the truth about Vasanthan but was fatally assaulted by him so that she does not reveal his intentions to anyone. Ashwin realises that Saro had tried to warn him and Renu about Vasanthan’s true character before dying and also that now Vasanthan is double-crossing the Naxalites and is planning to kill them as a show of achievement.

Ashwin records this confession using his mobile phone camera and sends it to Renu, who plans to publish this story in their newspaper. Vasanthan then arrives and kills Kadhir. He also tries to kill Ashwin. However, Ashwin triggers a land mine there, which explodes, killing Vasanthan, while Ashwin manages to escape. Vasanthan’s party members arrive at the hideout on hearing the news that Vasanthan had died. Seeing their innocence, Ashwin forces Renu not to reveal the truth about Vasanthan because his party members would get into serious trouble and lose their seats just for supporting him. They did not know about Vasanthan’s intentions and supported him, believing his false claims of a “healthy government”. Renu publishes an article saying that Vasanthan had sacrificed his life fighting the Naxalites and died as a martyr. Ashwin and Renu submit their resignations to the editor, S. Krishnakumar ‘Krish’, for falsified reporting, but he rejects their resignations and tells them to cover the next CM.