Surongo (2023) [Film Review] — Money, love, and a tunnel dug for revenge

Directed by Raihan Rafi and penned by Nazim Ud Daula and Stylox Vai, Surongo tracks Masud — a working-class electrician whose life fractures after marriage. The film launches from a familiar domestic spark: Masud falls for Moyna during an everyday repair job, marries her, and soon finds himself the primary provider. When Masud goes abroad for work, a seductive friendship between Moyna and Jahir upends everything. Betrayal, financial ruin, and a grim determination follow: Masud returns, tunnels underground, robs a bank, and pursues a violent reckoning. The narrative moves from tender origins to a bleak, morally complicated climax.

Direction & Screenplay

A confident hand with occasional plot holes

The director’s vision is unmistakable: to build a social thriller that doubles as a moral fable about aspiration and avarice. The screenplay’s central conceit — a husband who literally tunnels his way to fortune and vengeance — is audacious and cinematically arresting. Yet the script asks viewers to suspend disbelief at times (how such an elaborate plan was financed and executed strains plausibility). Still, the director stages the descent with considerable stylistic flair: intimate interiors, low-lit streets, and claustrophobic underground sequences give the film a tactile feel that serves the story’s dark heart.

Performances

Committed leads who carry the film’s emotional weight

The lead performance is arresting: Afran Nisho conveys Masud’s decent, stubborn dignity and the corrosive effects of humiliation. His slow-building rage feels earned because it is rooted in weariness more than melodrama. Opposite him, Tama Mirza crafts a Moyna who is both sympathetic and complicit — her eyes often say what the script leaves unsaid. Supporting turns add texture: Mostafa Monwar is persuasive as the manipulative Jahir, while Shahiduzzaman Selim provides a short but memorable turn as the investigating officer that punctures the second half with authority. Smaller performances from Rayhan Sardar, G M Asif Ahmed, Adib Ahasan Chowdhury, and Nusraat Faria Mazhar help populate the world credibly.

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Technical Merits

Mood through music and light

Cinematography captures Bangladesh’s nocturnal textures well — the camera lingers on small, telling details that amplify emotional stakes. The score punctuates key beats without overwhelming them; several songs become earworms, even when an item number temporarily disrupts the tonal flow. Production design and sound design combine effectively in the tunnel sequences, where silence and subterranean acoustics heighten tension.

Themes & Critique

An enquiry into desire, dignity, and the price of belonging

At its best, the film digs into how economic precarity warps relationships and choices. The moral ambiguity of Masud’s revenge forces the audience to ask uncomfortable questions about culpability and victimhood. However, the film’s lean toward portraying Moyna largely as a catalyst for male suffering is a thematic shortcoming; her interior life is not explored as fully as Masud’s, and the story occasionally falls into a moral shorthand that blames female desire rather than interrogating structural pressures. Still, the director’s willingness to let the tale end on a morally fraught note is courageous and rare in local mainstream cinema.

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Verdict

A flawed but engaging thriller with strong performances

With a rating that lands around 6.5 / 10, Surongo is an ambitious work that succeeds largely because of committed acting, atmospheric filmmaking, and a willingness to sit with moral discomfort. Its narrative holes and uneven character development keep it from being a classic, but as a piece of contemporary Bangladeshi cinema that blends social commentary with genre thrills, it’s worth watching — especially for viewers who appreciate films that ask uncomfortable questions and don’t offer tidy answers.