Prime Video has unveiled the first trailer for perhaps its biggest Indian series of the year — Farzi, starring Shahid Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi, and created by hitmaker duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. Popularly known as Raj & D.K, they're best known for creating and co-directing the hit Prime Video series The Family Man.
In Farzi, which means “fake” in Hindi, Kapoor plays an artist named Sunny. Bummed out by the social inequalities of contemporary India, where the rich get richer and the poor forever remain in their debt, Sunny decides to put his skills as an artist to good use. Together with his buddies, he hatches a plan to print fake banknotes. “I want to make so much money,” he says in a voiceover, as he falls in slow-motion on a bed of cash, “I don’t need to respect it anymore.”
Sunny thinks of himself as some kind of revolutionary, but he also happens to be a darn good artist. “I’m an expert in all styles,” he says confidently, as we watch him work. But before he can daydream about what he’ll do with his newfound wealth, a couple of seedy men begin tailing him. One of them, his main adversary, is a vaguely defined law enforcement officer played by Sethupathi. And then, there's a gangster, played by Kay Kay Menon.
The trailer teases the darkly comedic tone that has become such a staple of Raj and D.K.’s projects. The duo broke out with the crime film Shor in the City and the zombie comedy Go Goa Gone, but they truly hit the big leagues after the blockbuster success of the spy series The Family Man in 2019. An equally successful second season was released in 2021. They now have multiple projects in various stages of development, including Netflix’s Guns & Gulaabs, and two other series for Prime Video, including Gulkanda Tales, and the Indian leg of the Russo brothers’ Citadel.
Kapoor has been a mainstay in Bollywood for two decades, first making a name for himself as a romantic lead before diversifying into darker roles. Some of his biggest movies include the thriller Kabir Singh, the period epic Padmaavat, and the romantic drama Jab We Met. Sethupathi, on the other hand, works mainly in the Tamil film industry. India, you see, has several local language industries that function independently of each other. This is Sethupathi's first Hindi language project (he has more on the way). Menon, meanwhile, is among the most acclaimed actors of his generation, who leads his own spy series — Special OPS — over on Disney+ Hotstar.
The Farzi trailer reveals that the show will largely be set in the city of Mumbai — the home of Bollywood — but in true Raj and D.K. fashion, the story spans the length and breadth of the country. For instance, Sethupathi’s character is very clearly south Indian — he speaks broken Hindi — but we’re introduced to him when he’s on a mission in the state of Nagaland, in the north-east side of the country. We also see cramped lanes, expansive deserts, and open water, further revealing the scope of the show.
Written by Raj & D.K., Sita R. Menon and Suman Kumar, Farzi also stars Raashi Khanna, Regina Cassandra, Zakir Hussain, Bhuvan Arora, Amol Palekar and Kubbra Sait. The series lands on Prime Video on February 10. You can watch the trailer here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.