Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu- Tamil Cinema continues its good form

After a string of good films like Anjathey, Subramaniapuram, Poo etc in 2008, Tamil cinema continues its good run in 2009. With Bala’s Naan Kadavul (read the article- http://passionforcinema.com/naan-kadavul-bala-is-back-in-style/ ) and now director Susindhran’s impressive debut movie- Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu, 2009 looks quite promising indeed. Of late sport’s themed movies have been coming out in plenty especially in the area of cricket. After Iqbal,Chak De India, Chennai -28 ( some of the better sport’s themed movies of late) comes one more in that series- Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu ( VKK here after).Its a co-incidence that the day VKK released, another sport’s theme movie –Victory also released
The movie has some shades similar to Chak De India. First of all this is a story of an underdog team & is not individual specific. Also while CDI spoke about hockey, VKK goes even different & talks about Kabadi, a sport not very mainstream, yet deeply routed in our psyche. The movie’s cast primarily consists of debutants except the heroine- Saranya Mohan & the coach- Kishore. The story set in a village near Pazhani is about Mari (Vishnu) a boy who is very interested in Kabadi. After the death of his father he is forced to work in the zamindar’s fields. The boy grows up & is now a fringe player in the Kabadi team of the village. All the players are from different backgrounds & the team has disrepute of losing most of the games.
Once after losing a game, the team decides to call a nearby village team (a soft team) for their annual village festival so that they can win & redeem their pride in front of their villagers. Also during this village festival comes a girl from Madurai to the village (Saranya Mohan).Mari and the girl fall in love without speaking much. When the game is about to begin, the Vennila ( home team) is dismayed to find that the other team has brought in outside players to play, thus making it tough to win. Mari plays the game by default & the game ends in confusion. At the same time the girl goes back to Madurai after the festival is over after promising Mari she will back for the next festival.
Now the team is ridiculed by the whole village and that is when one of the team members finds out that there is a state level tournament happening in Madurai. The team decides to go to Madurai & try their luck. They know this may be their last opportunity to redeem their pride. A state level player cum coach ( Kishore) who happens to be there helps the team to play. What happens from thereon is what the 2nd half of the movie is mainly all about. Camera work by Laxman and music by Selvaganesh help the movie quite well. Susindhran’s effort at character building helps tremendously. While Vishnu & Saranya do their roles well, Kishore and the rest of the team look quite convincing. The semi rural milieu of T.N has been captured very well. For producer K.Anand Chakravarthy, the movie is a winner all the way.
All said and done my only question to Susindhiran is why did you have to end the movie like this? Yes the ending is truly shocking, but was this necessary? Or was this with an eye to win the audience sentiment? But overall the movie works in a big way. Go for the movie, you won’t be disappointed.

Originally published in PFC, check it out here-http://passionforcinema.com/vennila-kabadi-kuzhu-tamil-cinema-continues-its-good-form/comment-page-1/#comment-342383