A Karate master father, a homemaker mother, and a pharmacist uncle. The life of IT professional Nila (a fantastic Preity Mukundhan) seems quite simple and benevolent — she goes to her office, plays video games on her mobile, and spends time in her uncle’s medical shop, grudgingly looking at an old television set he refuses to let go. Nila’s life, to an unassuming viewer, may not seem anything too extraordinary. Still, one key piece of information reveals that perhaps this must be the kind of ‘family life’ backdrop that most assuredly camouflages a superhero origin story. Nila isn’t just any other ordinary human, and neither is that Karate master, homemaker, or pharmacist. Blast, directed by Subash K Raj, is a martial arts actioner pegged around one very potent Drishyam-esque idea — what if a family of martial arts pros is forced to step out of their normal lives to fight against injustice when nefarious men find their door? And director Subash comes off in flying colours by conceptualising a terrific set-up that makes use of this idea.The beating heart of the story is Preity Mukundhan’s Nila, who avoids becoming a merely gender-swapped routine action hero. There’s real moral and emotional backing to why Preity is the way she is, and Subash allows her the time to make her case. Nila’s quest started when she was a child. As she fumed with rage due to a ragging incident, her father, Rajaram (Arjun), told her, “fight back if you are in the right” and “fight against injustice even if the victims are strangers.”