Yuddham Sei Movie Review: When danger lurks around the corner

For those who follow Tamil Cinema it’s a known fact that Mysskinis a maverick filmmaker. His initial films Chithiram Pesudhadi andAnjathey were good examples of trying something new within the strains of the “commercial format”. After that he moved on to make his own tribute to Takeshi Kitano’s Kikujiro, called Nandalala. But sometime last year (2010) things were not going all that great for Mysskin. Nandalala was still lying in the cans (eventually released towards the end of the year) and a project planned with Kamal Haasan did not take off. At that juncture I was very curious to know what Mysskin was going to come up with and the announcement of his next film- Yuddham Sei ( YS from hereon ) took me by surprise. In fact to be honest I was even a bit skeptical about the film.

What surprised me initially was the fact that YS was supposed to be an investigative thriller with Cheran playing the lead as a cop. While I had a lot of respect for Cheran as a filmmaker and have also liked a few of the films done by him as an actor, I have always felt that he had a limited range when it came to acting. His previous film- Pokkisham had only gone on to re-enforce my feeling about the same. Hence knowing that Cheran was to play a cop here made me wonder if Mysskin had made a wrong choice for the main lead. Adding to it were the rumors of the film being inspired by the popular Korean film Memories Of Murder, directed by Bong-Joon-Ho.

YS begins with what looks a trail of serial murders with one unique feature- the amputated arms of the victims being left behind, clearly in a way that can be easily noticed. The case comes to the table of the CB-CID and the chief of the Chennai bureau, (Naren who was recently seen in Aadukalam) entrusts the case to an unwilling JK (Cheran) who is terribly disturbed, as his sister has gone missing suddenly. JK and his team go about methodically trying to solve the case. JK’s approach is to try & connect all the dots and in doing so they come across an old case involving the family of Dr.Purushothaman (Y.G. Mahendran) and Duraipandi (Manicka Vinayagam). While Duraipandi, a textile showroom owner is very much active in his business; the entire family of Dr.Purushothaman is believed to have committed suicide following a series of emotional upheavals. As JK realizes that Suja the daughter of Dr.Purushothaman was missing, he decides to re-open the case once again.

How JK and his team go about covering every element related to the case and how they join the missing links, leading to an interesting climax is what the rest of the film is all about. Here I need to certainly mention that all my initial apprehensions about the film more or less vanished in the course of watching the film. My biggest concern was about Cheran playing the investigative cop and I must say that it was a wonderful move by Mysskin to have cast Cheran as the protagonist. Though the main lead here is an investigative cop, it is not a loud, larger than life character. Here the character of JK is someone who is very subtle and goes about analyzing things more than speaking out. Cheran looks very vulnerable in the scenes when he’s trying to follow up on his sister’s disappearance and looks very much in control when he’s otherwise investigating the murders. A major part of the film’s success ( if I can call it ) lies in getting the characterization of JK right.

JK with his team

The other praiseworthy point about the film is Mysskin’s choice of entrusting 2 key elements of the film to newcomers who have more than delivered what was expected- K the music composer and Sathya, the DOP of the film. Mysskin had so far always worked withMahesh Muthuswami (DOP) and the results have been always wonderful in their films done together. But with Mahesh this time being unavailable, it gave an opportunity for Sathya (who had interned withP.C.Sriram) to get his 1st individual assignment as DOP. With most of the movie being shot in the night, Sathya’s camerawork effectively brings to life the sober shades, which complements the grim storyline. K’s background score is effective while the lone song in the film-“Kannitheevu Ponna, Katterumbu Kanna” (an item number picturised on filmmaker Ameer and Neetu Chandra) has fulfilled its objective of reaching out to the masses and becoming a chartbuster.

Talking about the rest of the star cast- Deepa Shah who assists Cheran has nothing much to do in the film.Jayaprakash as Judas the pathologist is wonderful and Lakshmi Ramakrishnan as the wife of Dr.Purushothaman is very effective indeed. There are a host of other actors like Selva, Yugendran etc who do what is expected out of them. There are quite a few interesting portions in the film. The fight on the bridge where Cheran tackles his opponents armed with just a nail cutter is certainly to be singled out- brilliant. Also effective are the locations, especially the hideout of the villains. Yes one can say that for those who have been watching a lot of World Cinema the shock value would be far lesser but then one needs to understand that its not often that such films in Tamil get made. For those who complain about the pace of the film, let me say that I did not have to keep looking at my watch during the film and hence the length is justified. All in all an interesting attempt by Mysskin and team, one that can certainly be watched for sure.

Caution- It’s an adult film and hence kindly do not take your kids along with you for the same. And by the way the movie has nothing to do with Memories of Murder in case if you are still wondering.

Originally published in PFC- http://passionforcinema.com/yuddham-sei-movie-review-when-danger-lurks-around-the-corner/

13 B- Beware of the Television

R.Madhavan is back & this time with a bilingual- 13 B in Hindi & Yavarum Nalam in Tamil. The movie also marks the return of Poonam Dhillon to the big screen after a long gap. One also gets to see P.C. Sreeram’s cinematography in only his 2nd ever Hindi movie & the music is by Shankar-Ehasan –Loy. Considering all these things and also the fact the movie is in the horror-thriller genre made me curious to watch the movie. Also with movies like Phoonk, 1920, Raaz- The Mystery Continues having all done well recently at the box office, the curiosity factor in my case was slightly more.

First things first Vikram Kumar the director and screen play writer loses no time in building up a premise to the plot. The movie is all about a family which consists of Madhavan, his wife ( Neetu Chandra), his brother, brother’s wife and two kids, a sister and the mother ( Poonam Dhillon). At the very beginning we see the family shifting into a new flat on the 13th floor (13 B) of the building after taking a loan. But a series of strange incidents keep happening especially with Madhavan.

The lift doesn’t seem to work for him, pictures of him taken on his mobile phone seem to be distorted, one is unable to hammer nails in the puja room, and so on. Madhavan seems to initially shrug off all these happenings and tries to get on with his routine. All the women in the house (especially the mother and her 2 daughter in laws) are fond of watching the saas- bahu serials on T.V & one day when they try to catch up on a favorite serial of theirs, they are unable to change the channels & happen to watch a new serial. What’s interesting is that the serial happens to be based on a family similar to that of theirs and the happenings in the serial seem to mirror those happening in 13 B.

One fine day Madhavan happens to notice the serial by chance & realizes the strange similarity between the serial & the situation at home.When things start getting even more bizarre, he even brings a friend, a cop (Murli Sharma) home to check the same & when he also admits to the strange similarity, things start to look all the more puzzling. So what really is the serial all about? What’s the connection between the serial & their family? Is their house haunted? What really is the secret behind all the sudden happenings? Watch the movie to find out the answers to these and many more questions.

Camera work by P.C.Sreeram really acts as one of the major highlights of the movie. The use of various color tones to suit the various moods of the film is remarkably done. Songs by S-E-L do not really work in the movie & only seem to slow down the pace of the movie. B.G.Score by Tubby-Parik is effective. In terms of acting, Madhavan is earnest as always, Neetu Chandra is decent, Poonam Dhillon as the T.V obsessed mother doesn’t get much screen time, Murli Sharma is good, Sachin Khedekar is just o.k, Dhritiman Chatterjee is good and Deepak Dobriyal in a small role impresses nevertheless. The movie for once does not have the typical blood & gore associated with Indian movies of this genre & is more of something which plays on your mind.

Considering the way one’s life nowadays has become so much dependent on the T.V & the mobile phone, the story looks quite contemporary and reasonably convincing. Yes at times the pace does drop a bit, but overall the movie is fairly earnest in what it intends to convey. Definitely a decent movie and worth a watch especially for those who like movies like The Ring (no it’s certainly not close to it in terms of brilliance though).

Originally published in PFC- check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/13-b-beware-of-the-television/