Disclaimer: I walked into the movie biased against it.
But MAN was I in for a pleasant surprise.
Disclaimer 2: The review could be long. I’m not sure, I’m just starting to write. (I finished, yes it’s long)
To be clear, let’s get one thing straight. This is NOT the book made into a movie. It’s the cinematic take on the story that is said in the book. Same story, different media. Said differently, by different people. But a good one at that. The movie shines in the manner of adaptation.
The plot is very intricate and twisted, but the premise is: a king, two princes, and scheming under-lords trying to overthrow the prince’s ascension. A swarm of deep and grey characters, stunning locations and great imagery.
The difference between the book and the movie can be seen the moment the movie opens. Unlike the book, which opens to a wonderful and beautiful scenery of the Chola landscape, the movie opens in the middle of a battlefield, amidst fountains of blood and with men drunk on violence. Immediately we know this is going to be something else. This is not a clean, tongue-on-cheek, glorify-the-royalty kind of take. This is a bloody take on the story. This is the story of people who swing swords for a living.
And this trend is carried out throughout. It is definitely not a gory movie but it never pulled punches during fight scenes, nor did the characters. Bloody swords, bloodier men, main characters bleeding their lives out - very grounded or at least, believable. The fight scenes were undeniably great to watch and even when you know the main characters will live, there are moments when the stakes seem real, and you are genuinely engaged.
The very next thing that has to be talked about is the cast. A true star cast in Tamil Cinema, if there ever was one. And the best part is, everyone was pretty good. There was very little left to be desired in the performance. Two actors stole the show, though. It seems like Vikram entered Tamil cinema and endured questionable movies (see previous post) just to land the best character he was made to play. Vikram as Aditha Karikalan was mind blowing to say the least. Every second he is on screen, the audience feels the tension in his muscles, the constant screaming in his head, his anger. And it all comes to the peak, in a very subtle scene when Vikram is talking to Trisha and he gives a look, directly at the audience, a look not of anger or violence, but of grief, the look of a broken man. It may feel like exaggeration, but in my opinion, this is the best single frame of the movie. Even Kalki had not painted such an image of Karikalan, who is, at his core, a broken, sad disturbed man, looking for some kind of forgiveness from someone. Peak acting. Enough to overlook Cobra, truly.
The next performance that caught everyone’s eyes was Karthi as Vanthiyathevan. Frankly, as everyone’s favourite character from the books, he had the most expectations to meet. And he did. A hyper, funny, flirty young man who will do anything to achieve what he wants to. It was a great fit. Again there was one scene in the movie which captures the essence of his character. “You ask why I am doing this? Well, I have hands and legs, gotta do something with them, right?”. Also the dynamic between Jeyaram and Karthi was really good.
Sarathkumar, Parthiban, Trisha, Aishwarya Rai, Jeyam Ravi - did the part they had to play. Still not quite convinced with Jeyam Ravi but definitely not a bad performance. Prakash Raj’s screen time was painfully low and his character did not have the impact it should have had. Poonguzhali was simply art.
Rahman’s music shot the movie up to new heights. The songs felt perfectly placed and not even one seemed forced or dragging. The songs only added to the mood and the vibe of the scenes. And they were amazing in the movie. I mean, was there any question? Rahman was the only possible man for the job.
There were a few points that left me personally dissatisfied. But honestly that was expected. To cram this big of a story into a movie, it is to be expected that some characters and even plot-points have to be cut out. The biggest disappointment was the missing out of stunning and breathtaking views and descriptions of the Chola landscape, that were expected in a period film such as this, that may have added to the audience relating to the time and culture. And a couple of songs I expected to see that weren’t there.
And the biggest point that is very noticeable is that sometimes, the plot moves so damn fast, to keep up with the time. We are not given enough time to let the scenes and their implications sink in, before moving to another equally intense and important scene. Sometimes it feels unclear why certain characters are doing certain things because the motivation or reason was conveyed in a two–line dialogue in a fleeting moment before flying off to the next scene, or that the motivation was entirely implied and left for the viewer to infer. This can be especially felt in the second half, where the entire movie was behaving like it was running out of time.
And one more good thing, the CG was amazing. Did not expect this at all.
In short, I was probably one of the few who were dead set against making the book into a movie. And I am glad they did it. Maniratnam did it. I seriously hope he keeps it up for the second part, which could be a much more challenging half of the story.
Go watch it, people.
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Mozhi, Sep 2022.
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