Malavika Mohanan, Andrea Jeremiah, Arjun Das, Shanthanu Bhagyaraj and Gouri G. Kishan play supporting roles.

The film follows John Durairaj "JD", an alcoholic professor, who takes a three-month teaching job at a juvenile home, and clashes with Bhavani, a ruthless gangster, who uses the children as the scapegoat for his criminal activities.

Principal photography commenced in October 2019 and ended in February 2020; the entire film was shot across Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Karnataka within 129 working days.

[11][12] Many trade analysts and exhibitors praised the film's team for the revival of the theatrical business in Tamil Nadu, which suffered heavy losses due to the pandemic.

2019: Gradually, Bhavani becomes a feared gangster and remains immune from punishment by coercing the inmates of the detention facility to take the blame for his crimes.

Undiyal reveals that select inmates are tattooed with the Tamil letter 'ப' (Pa), allowing them to access free food and drugs in exchange for surrendering for Bhavani's crimes.

[37] An official announcement was made on 24 August 2019, by producer Britto,[38][39] under his newly launched production banner XB Film Creators.

[41] Along with the news, he revealed some of the crew that will work on the film,[42] with Anirudh Ravichander being announced as the music director and Silva for stunt choreography.

Sathyan Sooryan and Philomin Raj were retained as the cinematographer and editor respectively for this film, after previously collaborated on the director's Kaithi.

[51] Varghese later left the project, citing scheduling conflicts and was later replaced by Arjun Das, who was a part of Lokesh's previous venture, Kaithi.

[70][71] After few pictures from the film's shooting spots were leaked, the team proceeded to have the images removed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

[96] However LetsOTT, a digital media company website claimed that the film will not contain additional scenes but instead the abusive words will not be censored in this version.

[102] However, it was referred that he was a student of Professar Selvam, a character played by Kamal Haasan in Nammavar,[103] whom he considered as an inspiration and becomes alcoholic after his loss.

[100] The film's soundtrack album and background music is composed by Anirudh Ravichander, with lyrics written by Arunraja Kamaraj, Gana Balachandar, Arivu, Vignesh Shivan, Vishnu Edavan and Bjorn Surrao.

The audio was released at a launch event held on 15 March 2020, at the Leela palace hotel in Chennai and was aired live on Sun TV.

[140] The advance bookings of the film started from 7 January in limited theatres across Tamil Nadu,[141] and generated record number of ticket sales for the opening weekend.

[149] The film's pre-release business, which includes theatrical, overseas, satellite, digital, music and dubbing rights were sold for ₹200 crore prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vijay was inquired about potential tax evasion, when he was busy shooting for the film in Neyveli, regarding his investment in immovable properties which he inherited from the production studio AGS Entertainment, the company which had previously produced Bigil (2019).

[183] Two days later, on 7 February 2020, members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) protested in front of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) where its shooting was going on.

[190] Many doctors too protested against this,[191][192] and soon after, Central Government notice was passed and it was revoked back to 50% seating capacity in Tamil Nadu theatres.

[202] Producer Xavier Britto officially confirmed the news of its first day collection, through the production company's Twitter account.

[citation needed] The film was a profitable venture in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, collecting ₹9.20 crore share in first three days.

"[225] Ranjani Krishnakumar of Firstpost gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Master is unfortunately the kind of film that concerns itself with too many things but can hardly focus on any of it beyond adorning the hero.

Buoyed by a fantastic score by Anirudh Ravichander, here is a film that, for all its flaws, is keenly aware of the star power at its disposal and seldom punches below its weight.

K of India Today described Lokesh's script as "boring" and criticised the nearly three-hour runtime, but called Vijay's performance as a flawed character an improvement over his usual roles as "a righteous man belting out socially-conscious messages" and also praised the soundtrack.

"[228] Karthik Keramalu of The Quint gave 2 out of 5 stars and opined that "Master wouldn't have become a drastically different movie, if the film lack a few illogical elements.

[246] Director Mysskin[247] and actress Radhika, also praised the actor's decision to release the film in theatres,[248] as well as many producers and distributors.

[257][258] The song "Vaathi Coming" reached phenomenal response and many Indian celebrities such as Shilpa Shetty,[259] Nazriya Nazim,[260] Varalaxmi Sarathkumar[261] and Genelia D'Souza[262] recreated the signature step which went viral through social media.

[265] After Master's success, many North Indian trade exhibitors suggested Bollywood industry, to release their films after the pandemic.

[270] Theatre owners in Tamil Nadu claimed that, despite the revival of theatrical business, none of the films which released after Master, received a similar success as the latter due to non-gripping content and lack of promotional activities.