The much-awaited teaser of Dragon directed by Prashanth Neel and starring Jr NTR finally dropped as a birthday treat for the actor’s fans. The four-minute teaser was launched in five languages – Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and Kannada – indicating that the film will have a pan-Indian release.
The film is set to release worldwide on June 11, 2027.
The teaser reveals that the British came to India to exploit traditional resources like cotton, steel, and spices, but the reason they stayed in India for 250 years was the opium poppy plant—the raw material used to produce highly addictive drugs like heroin. When the British finally exited the country in 1947, they abandoned this massive, single most profitable business in human history.
By 1967, this opium trade had split into two: the Afghan Trading Company and the Golden Trading Company. The teaser revolves around the violent war between these two powerful drug-trading empires for control over the opium business in the "Golden Triangle".
Rather than a traditional hero, Jr NTR plays a ruthless character named Luger, who is the assassin of the Afghan Trading Company. The entry of Anil Kapoor's character, Raghuveer Rathod, the chief of India's Narcotics Bureau, turns the story into a massive conflict between the two drug-trading empires and the government.
The teaser also features Biju Menon, Rukmini Vasanth, Khushbu Sundar, Guru Somasundaram, and Ashutosh Rana in significant roles. The film’s background music is composed by Ravi Basrur, while Bhuvan Gowda handles the camera. The stunt sequences are choreographed by Peter Hein and Chetan D’Souza. Fans are going gaga over Jr NTR’s body transformation and screen presence in the teaser.
While the action sequences and overall intensity stand out, several critics pointed out that the visual palette feels similar to Neel’s earlier works such as K.G.F: Chapter 1 and K.G.F: Chapter 2 and Salaar: Part 1 Ceasefire. Several viewers too commented that it is high time for Neel to experiment with fresher colour grading and visual settings instead of reusing the same ones. Others pointed out that the teaser relies a little too heavily on AI-generated visuals, making certain scenes appear artificial.
