Mafia: Chapter 1

After the success of Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru, Karrthick Naren started work on his second project Naragasooran, which remained unreleased due to financial constraints, despite production completed in 2017.[5] Also Naren's third film Naadaga Medai, starring Kalidas Jayaram, Rahman, Parthiban and Gautham Karthik also put on hold.[6] In June 2018, Naren narrated a script to Silambarasan, for which he agreed to do the film. However, the project was not being confirmed.[7] In March 2019, the production house Lyca Productions signed Naren for his upcoming project, which stars Arun Vijay in the leading role.[8] Prasanna was reported to play the antagonist and Nivetha Pethuraj was signed in for a pivotal role, whom she was replaced by Priya Bhavani Shankar.[9] In May 2019, the makers announced the film's title as Mafia.[10]

Principal photography began on 31 May 2019 in Chennai.[11] The shooting of the film's first schedule undergone a brisk pace and was completed on 2 July 2019.[12] The makers started the second schedule of the film on 5 July 2019, soon after the completion of the first schedule.[13] It was touted to be shot in eleven days, thus the film's shoot is scheduled to be completed within 37 days.[13] On 18 August, Priya Bhavani Shankar tweeted that she had completed shooting her portions for the film.[14] Within few days, Arun Vijay and Prasanna headed to Thailand to shoot some crucial action sequences.[15] On 26 August, it was announced that the makers had completed shooting for the film.[16]

Thinkal Menon of The Times of India gave 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "Mafia would appeal to fans of action movies, especially those which have stylish narcotics backdrop."[19] Behindwoods gave it 2.75 stars out of 5 and wrote "Karthick Naren once again shows a lot of promise, like what we saw in his previous film. The film starts engaging you slowly as it progresses. If the energy of the climax sustains throughout the sequel, we might get a quality homegrown franchise."[20] Indiaglitz similarly gave it 2.75/5 and praised the lead actors, action sequences and technical aspects while criticizing the predictability of several scenes. Nevertheless, the reviewer felt the film was "an interesting start for an action franchise."[21]

Sreedhar Pillai of Firstpost gave 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "On the whole Mafia: Chapter I is stylishly cut but has very little substance. But the climax has kindled the expectation meter for Chapter II. In fact, just for the seven minute climax surprise twist we are going with a higher rating than it would have deserved."[22] Srivatsan. S of The Hindu wrote "Arun Vijay and Prasanna struggle hard to keep the tension alive in an adequate thriller that abuses its own substance".[23]Deccan Chronicle rated 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The problem with 'Mafia' is that it makes plenty of noise but has little substance".[24] S Subhakeerthana of The Indian Express rated 2 out of 5 stars stating "The biggest problem is that Mafia: Chapter 1 is so randomly written".[25]

Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute rated 2 out of 5 stars wrote "Karthick falls back on voiceovers and an excessive use of English in the dialogues to keep up the sophisticated tone, but the writing falls flat".[26] Haricharan Pudipeddi of Hindustan Times wrote "Mafia may come across as slightly over stylised for a story set in Chennai and involving officers of the Narcotics Control Bureau, but once you get used to the world, you’re in for a surprise".[27]Sify rated 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "All style and no substance".[28] Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote "The single-minded pursuit of surface style kills the movie. The rhythms are flat. The scenes play like summaries that nobody bothered to shape into… a “scene”. There's a lot of dead air."[29]