Sunday, June 15, 2008

Dasavatharam(2008)-Tamil


Cast: Kamal Hassan(10), Asin, Mallikha Sherawat, Napolean…….
Directed By: K.S.Ravikumar
Produced By: Oscar Films(name changed as AASCAR in this movie)
Music: Himesh Reshmaiya, Devi Sri Prasad


Storyline:
The basic storyline is that everything happening in this world has some meaning or something related to it.

So kamal has taken this storyline and he has tried to make audience believe that his story has something related to each scene but I didn’t find any meaningful relation.

Story starts in 12th century with Rangaraja Nambi character who is strong with his vaishnavite principle and not willing to go with saivas principle. Because of his strong principle he is thrown into sea along with rangaraja perumal idol.

Then story starts with Govind who is a bio-scientist in US ,his invention is misused by his boss so govind tries to save his dangerous invention from wrong hands. The story moves from US to India as govind goes in to save his bio weapon from American bad guy(kamal).And few more scenes which makes audience to come to an conclusion by relating to each scene.

RE-el-VIEW:

Kamal has taken interesting and controversial topic as the opening scene for Dasavatharam but for safer side I wouldn’t like to comment here about the interesting topic. I would put Dasavatharam as two stories , first as rangaraja nambhi character and bio-scientist character as other.At the end one scene which makes you to get hardly convinced that both stories are related. I felt first story was unnecessary for this movie. To be honest rangaraja nambhi character for the opening was satisfying.

The interesting and funny part was when kamal tries to explain his biological weapon ,no one was able to get what he was saying. He could have tried it to make simple and easily understood to the common man . Story easily moves from US to India which is not real and logical but screenplay was cleverly made so that audience forget the logic for the transition. Mallikha Sherawat glam doll was unnecessary luggage for this movie.

Asin character is just an 5% of the movie ,she has acted well for the scenes she got. Out of ten characters,CBI balram naidu character was most enjoyable part of this movie.CGI work in this movie is dominating more than the kamal’s work. CGI work was not really excellent to make you feel that this is not CGI work and I almost recognized the 90% of CGI work in this movie which is failure for their work. Even the aerial shot of Chennai and tsunami scenes were shot real but along with CGI effect it makes unreal. The worrying part of this movie was the perumal idol which is used throughout the movie is thrown,buried and few dialogues about the idol would definetly hurt religious sentiments of few people they should have taken care in presenting it.

Kamal who is known for his brilliance in acting and passion for cinema has proved again in Dasavatharam. Only one encyclopedia of cinema has put tremendous efforts to present ten characters in one movie which is too huge as the budget of the movie. His brilliance to present to each character was truelly amazing. The George bush character,granny character,scheduled tribe character are the real example of hard work for any actor to put into his role. Definetly there couldn’t be any actor to replace his position after this movie.

Songs for this movie was really excellent especially mukundha mukundha,kallai mattum kandal,oh oh sanam was unexpected tunes from Himesh. Background score by Devi Sri Prasad was awesome. Ravi varman cinematographer has worked a lot for this movie by presenting grand huge shots ,aerial shot of Chennai and 12th century part are the examples. Eventhough movie is directed by KS Ravikumar but everyone knows it’s a combined effort from both kamal and ravikumar. Interactions between three characters, two characters of kamal were executed well and they are the masterpiece of technical brilliance. Dasavatharam is overloaded with too many characters and it’s an overdose for the audience. Normally in kamal films his characters will be dominating other characters but in Dasavatharam his character recursively gets dominated by other character.
After an 3h 15mins film audience will be obsessed only with ten characters of kamal not even the story of the movie. Makeup work for granny character, bush and scheduled tribe character(I guess they have taken the reference of pushpavanam kuppuswamy) are awesome. The pain,strain and time that kamal has gone through to take these many makeups was an tremendous effort. Almost he has spent 500 hours for the makeup. The efforts which he has put for the characters make me forget about the mislinks and loopholes in this movie.


“Worth watching and must watch only for 10 characters of kamal.”







Saturday, May 17, 2008

The Forbidden Kingdom(2008)-English




Starring: Jackie Chan,Jet Li
Director By:Rob Minkoff


Storyline:
A teenager from south boston who is crazy about Kunfu in HongKong films.He becomes an friend of chinese old man who runs shop which rent chinese movie dvds and old man has a STAFF(nothing but a divine stick). The staff which belongs to an ancient chinese 'Monkey King' who has tremondous divine power and martial arts skills, he remains powerfull only when he has the staff. He becomes carved as stone because of his rival Jade Warlord(who is also master in martial arts)and his staff is thrown away. Old man informs to teenager that the staff should reach the right person.The teenager enters into ancient world and finds way along with Jackie Chan and Jet Li to return the staff to the right person


RE-el-VIEW:
Forbidden Kingdom is an fantasy film with action and drama. The movie is really interesting and it has two great martial arts stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Action sequences and special effects for the stunts are really good, i would say stunts in this movie are usual ones not a trendsetting stunts but still it's good to watch. This movie has little surprise to Chan fans,Chan comes as old man in the beginning part of the movie and acted well as an old man.It would not be easy to recognize the Chan as old man even Li does a double role in this movie. Forbidden Kingdom is a fantasy movie so we can't expect logic linked between the scenes and at some point in the movie it make you feel bit bored later it builds up and make you feel better. This movie has been shot in few good locations and also replicates the locations which were used in 'Flying Daggers' movie.

This movie fails to give a clear narration about how the teenager gets into the ancient chinese world and also Li's double role are not clear.If you are not worried about these two things then it's an average movie to watch.The background score of the movie is too good.



"Worth Watching for Jackie Chan and Jet Li stunts...don't expect much...it's an average movie."

Monday, May 12, 2008

Santhosh Subramaniam(2008)-Tamil

Starring : Ravi,Genelia,Praskash Raj...so on.
Directed By : Raja
Produced By : AGS Entertainment
Music : Devi Sri Prasad

Storyline:
Son Who fights for his own right of choice with his father. Finally he stands strongly against his father's decision for his marriage. Then his father decides to go with his son's decision.

Better watch Bommarillu(Telugu)

RE-el-VIEW:
This will be my shortest review and there is nothing much to say about this movie not because of the story but the way they presented in tamil which showcased not even 1% of creativity. Eventhough they say it's a remake why wouldn't the makers of the movie never thought of giving better version than telugu.In telugu it was neatly made and it would be tough to give a better version than telugu atleast theyshould have tried. Most craziest part in making this movie is that director never compromised even the costumes of Genelia and locations which were used in Bomarillu. I know they bought copyrights for the movie from telugu producer even the costumes too?????.

Bommarillu was really good movie in telugu which we get once in a while from the telugu movie makers.Raja has made sure not to spoil the telugu version so he has made exact copy by not taking risk,it's really a safe policy to be successfull director.SS can be appreciated for santhanam jokes and few good locations shot for the songs.


"It's not worth watching Santhosh Subramaniam if you are very much satisfied with Bommarillu."