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On 23rd July Chandramukhi will complete 100 days which is a rare thing in the current cinema trend. Reasons for the current trend are pirated CDs, Mega Serials, Cost of tickets, maintenance of cinema theatres, numerous recreation that has mush-roomed in the city. But most of his movies are beyond all those things. His movie is like a theme park. Whenever his movie is released, it becomes one of the options for the family as a weekend recreation. His idea is to entertain people without vulgarity and that is why he has wide range of audiences.
Chandramukhi's achievement :
1. First movie to complete 100 days in Mayajaal.
2. Doing a business of 100 crores.
3. First movie to be dubbed in Zulu (Lance Klusener's mother tongue) and Afrikaans (South Africa's main language)
4. Doing very well in Kerala, a place from where Chandrmukhi's knot is taken from the movie Manichitrathazhu, and dislodged Mohanlal's latest movie.
5. Doing very well in Andra and going to complete 100 days in 10 theaters. Many big Telugu movies including Chiru's movie was released along with Chandramukhi. But all bite the dust except Chandramukhi.
6. Generally in US, Indian movies will be screened for 2 weeks that too only one show during weekdays and 4 shows during weekends. But CM was screened for 5 weeks with 5 shows a day.
7. Rajni's salary for this movie is 20 crores and thus making him as the highest paid actor in India again.
8. Abirami theater alone will get 1 crore.
9. Vetri theatre in Chrompet, a suburb of Chennai which is said to have paid Rs 20 Lakhs MG, and according to trade sources the theatre recovered the amount in five days and thereby created a new record. The rumor mill has it that Vetri theatre had collected Rs 7, 62,000 gross on the first day making it “unofficially” the highest collection from a single screen for a day in India! Remember, this can happen only with a Rajnikanth film! He is the only superstar after the late MGR who can entice an ordinary movie going public to part with their hard earned money for three hours of pure fantasy.
10. After Baba debacle, he silenced all his detractors inside and outside film industry through CM.
11. Surely Industry will have lucrative year just because of CM as there is no big budget movie in the next 7 months (There is no chance of any big debacle this year). This happened 7 years before on 1998 when 'Padayappa' was release. That is why Tamil Film Industry is considered as one man industry.
12. Generally Shahrukh Khan (considered as the most popular Indian actor) movies has done a business of 52 crores with 20 crores as cost of production (Kal Ho Na Ho and Main Hoon Na). CM, being a regional movie is doing a business of 100 crores with 5 crores + Rajni's salary as cost of production.
13. Overseas rights will be sold for 5 crores for SRK's movie while for Rajni it went up to 22 crores.
14. But the biggest achievement of CM is bringing family audiences, female audience who were glued to their TV sets watching 'Metti Oli' and children to the theaters.
After seeing ‘Anniyan’ on Saturday one will think, why even suspect whether Shankar - India’s costliest director - is running out of steam. One of the major minus point in this movie is that audiences are able to predict the story as well as Shankar’s formula. Ok, what is Shankar’s formula??? Being a student of S A Chandrasekar, Shankar always tries to convey some message to the society, delve the problems in our Indian law, hero taking the law in his hands, good technical crew, punish the baddies, super hit songs, one folk song (Generally this song will have very high use of percussion instruments and he intentionally uses a fast beat song to give some respite to the people before taking them to climax. Some example are ‘Ottagatha Kattiko’ in ‘Gentleman’, ‘Gopala Gopala’ in ‘Kaadalan’, ‘Uppu Karuvaadu’ in ‘Mudhalvan’, ‘Kannodu Kaanpedelam’ in ‘Jeans’) in the last 30 min of the movie. Whether he missed any one of above items in this movie? Answer is no. This movie even has a folk song ‘Rendakka Rendakka’ in the last 30 min. I am not against formula film making. Two most successful actors in Tamil cinema are MGR and Rajini. They both believed in formula films. But they always substituted different values in their formula. They will have 5 songs with different tunes, 5 comedy scenes with different flavor, Stunts with numerous styles and different heroic subject as their story. This is where Shankar missed the trick to some extent. He almost substituted the same values what he used for ‘Indian’ and ‘Gentleman’. Another major minus point is songs - which are Shankar’s forte - are not good when you compare it with his previous films and BGM is not up to the mark. Definitely Shankar missed A R Rahman a lot.
I won’t explain the story, in detail, as it will spoil the thrill and curiosity of the readers who are yet to see this film. In short, it’s about a person - whose pretty sister was electrocuted because of the carelessness of the EB department - who is perfect in all aspects of life and also expects the same from others. If he comes across any kind of crime in the society, he will handle that using law and tries to bring a solution which many time seems to be impractical and is criticizes by all, including his lover. Without his conscious, he starts to punish the criminals and director has tried to justify this using a new disease, Multi Personality Disorder. He also woos his ladylove with a different personality. Hero uses different ways, which has been explained in ‘Garuda Puranam’ to punish the culprits. This part is really interesting and is one of the pros of this film. Problem is that after many movies like ‘Ramana’ this story seems to have become obsolete.
Vikram’s overall performance is very good. But still I feel he, as Ramanujam alias Ambi, is not convincing as a strait laced Brahmin and his strong muscular iron like body doesn’t help him either. I am yet to see a Brahmin who has that kind of body. Generally Brahmins will have a flabby body and his dialog delivery is not that much great when you compare it with Kamal’s in MMKR or Maadavan’s in Nala Damayanthy. As Remo, he is really excellent and this character is mainly inserted only for songs. He is perfectly suited in Anniyan character. His acting in last 30 min or so is the main highlight of the film and he received a well-deserved applause from the audiences. He has done a remarkable job in stunt sequence too. Thanks to some special effect. I think director is a great fan of WWE. You can clearly see some shades of the famous ‘Undertaker’ in Anniyan’s attire. They could have used a different voice modulation for the third character as it reminds me of Kamal’s character as ‘Senapathy’ in Indian.
What to say about today’s heroines? Sada is no different from others. Sada is ‘Saada’ in most of the part - this is the statement I saw in one of the Mouthshut.com’s review and that reviewer has hit the nail on the head. She too didn’t depict the Brahmin character well.
Supporting characters did there job very well. Nedumuni Venu as Ramanujam’s father, Ramesh Vaidya as heroin’s father and ‘MettiOli’ fame Shanti Williams as hero’s mother did their job well. Two main characters that excelled in their performance are Vivek as ‘Chary’ and Prakash Raj. Vivek is the one who kept the first half moving and Prakash Raj in climax did a fantastic job.
Music is a big let down in this movie. Songs are neither peppy nor classical and it is saved only by some rich picturization. Best song in that album is Remo song and even it has some influence of the BeeGees song ‘Tragedy’ (that is when the chorus chant R E M O Remo Remo) in it. BGM is very mediocre and in some places BGM has same feel as that of Indian like the one when Prakash Raj’s brother is killed in a merciless way has some influence from Indian, when Corporation officer was killed by Senapathy in the storeroom. In other place it is little bit loud and jarring.
Technicality is one of the major plus in the movie. Sabu Cyril’s Art and Ravi Varman‘s Camera work (His first movie should have been ‘Marudhunayagan’ and he is a student of Ravi K Chandran. Initially Mani Kandan did the camera work. After he left in the mid way, Ravi got that chance) are really good and Sujatha’s dialogues are good in patches. Stunts by Peter Hein are of Hollywood standard.
Direction is good. At the same time Shankar has to understand that story is the nucleus of any movie and it should not be predictable. It is always better to go for a new story and even if he wants to rehash his story he can do that only after some time with different treatment. Otherwise movie won’t be that much successful. Also he should not depend too much on special effects as they will get saturated at one point and also those special effects are available to everyone and everyone can achieve what Shankar can achieve.
Pros: Last 30 minutes. Good work by Vikram and superb stunts with good camera work. Dialogues are decent and have some humor in some places. Vivek and Prakash Raj’s acting skill really helped the movie a lot. MPD and ‘Garuda Puranam’ kindled the audience’s curiosity. Also the Tulip flowers in Amsterdam in Netherlands.
Cons: Story is very old and has lot of logical holes. Music and Dialogues in some places are not upto the mark. Somewhat resemble Chandramukhi which has been released just before two months.
Final say: This Anniyan is not Anniyan (Stranger) to us. It has all the safe elements but doesn’t have the special elements which we expect from Shankar. This is nothing but an extension of Indian. We don’t know the result of this movie. This may become hit as we have seen in the past that some of Deva’s song topping the charts even though they are either copied from other MDs or rehashed from his old songs.
Swara Bedam. That is how all it started. Really an inauspicious way to start.
Rajni's career can be bifurcated as before 'Mannan&Thalapathy' and after 'Thalapathy'. In the first phase, one can witness the real Rajni where he played a normal hero . Yes, there were few exceptions where he presented a South Indian version of 'angry young man' roles which were nothing but the dubbing of Big B's super hit films in the north.
Billa - Don
Ram Robert Rahim - Amar Akbar Antony
Thee - Deewar
Padikkathavan - Khuddar
Mr. Bharath - Trishul
Velaikkaran - Namak Halal
Panakkaran - Laawaris
Dharmathin Thalivan - Kasme Vaade
Most of them were huge hits in Tamil too. But these were movies in which Rajni acted and not made for him. At the same, he has given some exceptional performance in that period. He delivered a stellar performance as 'Iyyampettai Arivudainambi Kariaperumal Chandran' in Thillu Mullu and he continued his work as a 'reckless rich man's son' in Thambikku Entha Oorru, as an 'Absent minded professor' in Dharmathin Thalaivan, as a 'slum prankster' in Guru Shishyan - a film which was completed within 30 days and my personal favorite is 'Rajni-Goundamani' combo in Mannan. All these movies proved the natural sense of humor that he had. If it is 'Sivaji' Ganesan for historical role then as a 'Sadist', Rajni is the best. His 'Parattai' role in 16 Vayadhinille is beyond time and he didn't stop there. His role in Avargal, Moonru Muduthu - in my opinion his best performance along with Parattai, Gayathri, Pollathavan and Netri Kann bolster my opinion. He gave a contrast but classy performance in Mullum Malarum, Jhonny and in Sri Raghavendra. He gained the attention of female audiences through some - what I will call it as a 'Betrayed by siblings or friends' - roles in 6il -60varai, Padikaathavan, Annamalai, Dharma Doorai and Bhairavi. He never felt ashamed to use dupe in the stunt sequences. His belief is that if the final product is good, people - especially the kids - will accept and another reason being that if the hero gets hurt it will stall the entire proceedings.
His second part is more of directors making stories to suit his image. But if the people are happy with this trend and every movie is going to make a business of 40C who will complain and it is not Rajni's fault. In the first, he was like 'Uthsava moorthy' where he was able to do different roles and in the latter part, he is like a Moolavar where he is cemented in the same place (here role) by the people.
Reason behind Rajni's success is that he always delivers 'Entertainment without vulgarity' movies and he never targets a particular set of audiences. Today's young heroes can learn a lot from Rajni and Kamal. They didn't reach this level overnight. First and foremost they had skill and the zeal for the profession. They were ready to toil hard. At the same time they were lucky to have directors like KB, Mani, Barathiraja and Mahendran. They had different styles and they gave movies with new flavor and didn't try to imitate their superstars (MGR and Sivaji). I feel today's heroes are trying to imitate Rajni and Kamal a lot and they expect fame within a short period which will never happen. They can take some lessons from these two great actor's life, but they should have their ownness.
