Chandramukhi - A hero's movie -Movie Review
There comes the US returned doctor.. In a jeans attire with buttons open, shirt flying all over,in a flashy sports shoe, in a fashionable car to a small town/ village somewhere in TamilNadu. He is just on-time to save a woman (popularly known as thaikulam) from goondas who are obviously trying to misbehave. The camera zooms on each and every movement of his, with heavy wind blowing all things around, in slow-motion. He just electrifies the screen just by his natural movements which are Godly acts to his followers. He twists, turns, flies, swishes everything around, makes baddies fly across all directions defying all scientific laws and finally gives his trademark smile that flashes and brightens the screen and the onlookers. This marks the return of the Superstar whom we last saw in Padayappa, around 5 years ago, forgetting the intermediate debacle, Baba...
Wait, wait.. The movie is supposed to be heroine-oriented, about one Ms.chandramukhi.. But the director cum screenplay writer thought otherwise... The actual story goes like this..
Long long ago, once upon a time, in a teeny-weeny place called Vettayapuram somewhere in Tamilnadu, the story begins. There is a king over there who is arrogant and has a weakness for women. He goes to Vijayanagaram in Andhra once and falls for the beauty of a courtroom dancer called Chandramukhi. He forcefully brings her back to his kingdom where he keeps her a captive. She meanwhile has a lover, a dancer, who resides behind the palace. The king comes to know of this and he beheads the lover infront of her and immolates her in the courtroom. Now, the spirit of Chandramukhi wants to take revenge on the king and gives lots of trouble to the king. The king does some pujas and yagnas and locks the spirit of Chandramukhi in a room at the backyard in the palace. No, unlike what this makes you think, it is not a period-movie...This part of the story is covered in one song plus 4 minutes of narration in the movie..
Moving over to current times, newly wed couple, Senthil (prabhu) and his wife (jyothika), buy this palace and renovate the same. The palace is taken care of by a gardener(vijayakumar) and his grand-daughter (nayanathara). This palace is believed to be filled with evil presence by the villagers and everyone around due to presumed existence Chandramukhi's spirit. Meanwhile, there is a huge affluent family related to Senthil who are in the same village and they decide to move in with senthil to this palace as a moral support to them under the instructions of Akilandeshwari, the elder most aunt of Senthil in that family. There are also two uncles (Nasser and vadivelu), two daughters of the elder uncle, and their wives in the family. Now where does the superstar fit in this madness of crowd? He is saravanan, the best friend of Senthil, who is a reknowned psychiatrist who knows and does everything that a doctor can do and cannot do... Every other character in the movie well utilises every opportunity to sing some paean on this character to fit his demi-god status in the tamil film industry. What does he do? He solves the mystery behind various unpleasant, dangerous happenings in the palace and finally sees to that Chandramukhi spirit is driven off the palace and family...
The original, Manichitrathazhu, had the hero's character appearing only in the middle of the movie. The story had very good suspense and the potrayal of split personality by the heroine shobana won her a national award. But here it is the hero's character which dominates the proceedings with everything else taking back seat. He dances, fights, jokes and does everything to keep the audience happy. The star looks smarter and fitter in most of the scenes and is very much likeable as ever.. The comedy scenes with Vadivelu, most of the times, evokes laughter. Some of the double meaning dialogues and scenes could have been though avoided. Eg: the scene where the hero and vadivelu's wife inhale steam to cure common cold.
The story's main character played by Jyothika, seems to be misunderstood by the director and the actress.. It is supposed to be a split personality comprising the normal wife character and the telugu speaking spirit, chandramukhi.. But the potrayal we see is a normal wife character and a mentally affected telugu spirit.. She rolls her eyes in all directions, when she plays chandramukhi, giving a "Mask" Jim Carrey effect (one can hear audience chuckle in a few serious scenes) instead of the frightening effect. Hardwork gone wasted...
Prabhu, as the husband, has nothing much to do other than being neat on screen. But he too manages to get the audience in splits in a serious scene when he mouths to the Hero, "enna kodumaippa idhu?", with tears in his eyes. This tells you some scenes could be more effective with some trimming.
Vadivelu has done a commendable job, especially in the scene when he visits the haunted palace the first time with the hero. But he has to watch out for his repetitive antics else he would soon become stale. Remaining characters do not have much to do. They fill the screen when required and look at the hero's character in admiration at apt situations (a bit overdone). Sonu sood's character (the dumb servant) and Akilandeshwari character turn out to be damp squibs.
The songs initially when heard in audio weren't very impressive but on repetitive hearing and when looked at in screen sounds great.. Each song carries some messages to the fans. The song "konja neram" picturised in turkey is very pleasant to watch.
Production values are average and some costumes and makeup are not in current-day standards. The fight sequences, though executed good, have overdone the crouching tiger act, i.e.: wire stunts. Flying seems commonplace..
Forget the negatives, to me the highlight of the movie is:
The song "Raa Raa" is played at climax in which the story behind the spirit is enacted by the current day characters. The superstar plays the villainous king in the song and his act in the song is simply superb. No current day villain could've done better. His smile and the gaiety, royal walks in emperor's dress is a treat to watch. He keeps smiling and gives out that unique sound "lakalakalaka.." which is thoroughly enjoyable. (He comes down the throne singing jathi (part of the song) and in one swift action, beheads the lover-dancer's head and gives a smile to Chandramukhi and spells "lakalaka..."). But you would have to wait till the end of the movie for this sequence and also bear the below-average makeup (especially the beard) as an emperor worn by the baadshah..
Overall the movie is notches below the original interms of execution but still is very much watchable due to one R factor. The Repeat factor, Rajni..
Go, watch it, you are assured of dollops of Rajni brand of fun (with some mild shocks due to the story butting intermittently).
Wait, wait.. The movie is supposed to be heroine-oriented, about one Ms.chandramukhi.. But the director cum screenplay writer thought otherwise... The actual story goes like this..
Long long ago, once upon a time, in a teeny-weeny place called Vettayapuram somewhere in Tamilnadu, the story begins. There is a king over there who is arrogant and has a weakness for women. He goes to Vijayanagaram in Andhra once and falls for the beauty of a courtroom dancer called Chandramukhi. He forcefully brings her back to his kingdom where he keeps her a captive. She meanwhile has a lover, a dancer, who resides behind the palace. The king comes to know of this and he beheads the lover infront of her and immolates her in the courtroom. Now, the spirit of Chandramukhi wants to take revenge on the king and gives lots of trouble to the king. The king does some pujas and yagnas and locks the spirit of Chandramukhi in a room at the backyard in the palace. No, unlike what this makes you think, it is not a period-movie...This part of the story is covered in one song plus 4 minutes of narration in the movie..
Moving over to current times, newly wed couple, Senthil (prabhu) and his wife (jyothika), buy this palace and renovate the same. The palace is taken care of by a gardener(vijayakumar) and his grand-daughter (nayanathara). This palace is believed to be filled with evil presence by the villagers and everyone around due to presumed existence Chandramukhi's spirit. Meanwhile, there is a huge affluent family related to Senthil who are in the same village and they decide to move in with senthil to this palace as a moral support to them under the instructions of Akilandeshwari, the elder most aunt of Senthil in that family. There are also two uncles (Nasser and vadivelu), two daughters of the elder uncle, and their wives in the family. Now where does the superstar fit in this madness of crowd? He is saravanan, the best friend of Senthil, who is a reknowned psychiatrist who knows and does everything that a doctor can do and cannot do... Every other character in the movie well utilises every opportunity to sing some paean on this character to fit his demi-god status in the tamil film industry. What does he do? He solves the mystery behind various unpleasant, dangerous happenings in the palace and finally sees to that Chandramukhi spirit is driven off the palace and family...
The original, Manichitrathazhu, had the hero's character appearing only in the middle of the movie. The story had very good suspense and the potrayal of split personality by the heroine shobana won her a national award. But here it is the hero's character which dominates the proceedings with everything else taking back seat. He dances, fights, jokes and does everything to keep the audience happy. The star looks smarter and fitter in most of the scenes and is very much likeable as ever.. The comedy scenes with Vadivelu, most of the times, evokes laughter. Some of the double meaning dialogues and scenes could have been though avoided. Eg: the scene where the hero and vadivelu's wife inhale steam to cure common cold.
The story's main character played by Jyothika, seems to be misunderstood by the director and the actress.. It is supposed to be a split personality comprising the normal wife character and the telugu speaking spirit, chandramukhi.. But the potrayal we see is a normal wife character and a mentally affected telugu spirit.. She rolls her eyes in all directions, when she plays chandramukhi, giving a "Mask" Jim Carrey effect (one can hear audience chuckle in a few serious scenes) instead of the frightening effect. Hardwork gone wasted...
Prabhu, as the husband, has nothing much to do other than being neat on screen. But he too manages to get the audience in splits in a serious scene when he mouths to the Hero, "enna kodumaippa idhu?", with tears in his eyes. This tells you some scenes could be more effective with some trimming.
Vadivelu has done a commendable job, especially in the scene when he visits the haunted palace the first time with the hero. But he has to watch out for his repetitive antics else he would soon become stale. Remaining characters do not have much to do. They fill the screen when required and look at the hero's character in admiration at apt situations (a bit overdone). Sonu sood's character (the dumb servant) and Akilandeshwari character turn out to be damp squibs.
The songs initially when heard in audio weren't very impressive but on repetitive hearing and when looked at in screen sounds great.. Each song carries some messages to the fans. The song "konja neram" picturised in turkey is very pleasant to watch.
Production values are average and some costumes and makeup are not in current-day standards. The fight sequences, though executed good, have overdone the crouching tiger act, i.e.: wire stunts. Flying seems commonplace..
Forget the negatives, to me the highlight of the movie is:
The song "Raa Raa" is played at climax in which the story behind the spirit is enacted by the current day characters. The superstar plays the villainous king in the song and his act in the song is simply superb. No current day villain could've done better. His smile and the gaiety, royal walks in emperor's dress is a treat to watch. He keeps smiling and gives out that unique sound "lakalakalaka.." which is thoroughly enjoyable. (He comes down the throne singing jathi (part of the song) and in one swift action, beheads the lover-dancer's head and gives a smile to Chandramukhi and spells "lakalaka..."). But you would have to wait till the end of the movie for this sequence and also bear the below-average makeup (especially the beard) as an emperor worn by the baadshah..
Overall the movie is notches below the original interms of execution but still is very much watchable due to one R factor. The Repeat factor, Rajni..
Go, watch it, you are assured of dollops of Rajni brand of fun (with some mild shocks due to the story butting intermittently).
posted by Bart at
12:34 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home