How often do you see a film in Tamil cinema that has science fiction as its genre? How often do you see a movie that moves away from the stereotypes that are today? It is a rarity to see experiments in Tamil cinema but sometime, the experiments wouldn't work out well as the director might have expected.
7aum Arivu is a story about Bodhi Dharman (played by Surya) who is believed to have lived in the 5th century and also claimed to the founder of the Shaolin school. Legends claim that he is a Tamizhan - a warrior who was well versed in Indian martial arts Kalari and also good at Hypnotism. After his death, people over there praised him as God whereas he was forgotten by the land where he was born. That is only the first 15 minutes of the movie.
Subha Srinivasan (played by Shruti Haasan), a bio-technology scientist, researches on genes and she claims that she can bring back ancient forgotten talents hidden in the genes by initiating them. She takes particular interest in Bodhi Dharman's case and she traces his family tree down to Aravindan (also played by Surya) who happens to be the descendant of Bodhi Dharman. Subha, in the pretext of being friendly with Aravindan, finds out that his genes shares resemblance to that of Bodhi Dharman. Aravindan gets cheated into believing that it is love and he gets heart broken. Meanwhile, a deadly assassin named Dong Lee (played by Johnny Tri Nguyen) is sent by China in order to kill Subha to stop her from bringing back Bodhi Dharman through her research as they are planning to have a bio war on India through a disease which only Bodhi Dharman knows to cure it. What happens next forms the story.
The film carries well in the first 15 minutes where it is kind of a short documentary on Bodhi Dharman. The scenes are taken beautifully which made fans believe that those are the only best scenes of the movie. What follows next in the first half are boring romance sequences and sloppy songs. When Dong Lee arrives, the film brisks at a higher pace, however, too much of exaggeration almost spoiled the rest of the movie.
In director's defense, his bold move of taking a new storyline rather than a commercial venture is highly laudable. He made people look into Wikipedia to know who Bodhi Dharma actually is. To craft a story from true facts is not an easy task to do. That is where director Murugadoss excels. He could have avoided the romance scenes which are not needed for the movie but however, the fans go to the movie expecting romance between the two leads. Hence the director's concentration on the story plot lets the script down.
Apart from shedding some light on Bodhi Dharman, there are several things to be praised about the movie. First is Surya's dedication - having become a master of his own craft, he never lets down his director with his performance. Also, in one scene, the heroine Subha is in control of the situation where he patiently obeys her orders which I am pretty sure that most of the other top actors wouldn't agree to do. In fact, that is logical because Shruti is a scientist whereas Aravindan is a circus stuntman and Shruti is bound to have some medical knowledge. This is where the director's wit is to be praised.
When Aravindan asks about Subha's father, she replies that he was interested in research which explains the reason why his daughter ventured into research as well. There are several such implicit scenes where the director's witty effort is shown. The other praise should be for Johnny Tri Nguyen who rocked as the villain. Though his hypnotism skills are too much exaggerated (no one can cause the entire traffic to get into mess with his hypnotism), there is one scene where he creates a ruckus in the police station. That scene is shown cleverly through the CCTV and the style imitates that of T-1000 of Terminator 2 fame. If Kamal Haasan did a commendable job as an assasin in the movieDasavatharam, he got a competitor.
Shruti Haasan, though in her debut Tamil movie, has done a decent job and her own Tamil voice has added the power to her role especially in her oral defense scene where she shouts at the Professors for showing disrespect to Tamil. The final scene of the movie, where Surya talks about the forgotten history of Tamil, is like the signature of the movie where Murugadoss makes a special appearance.
Having said that the directory is witty, there are several flaws in the movie. One of such is the exaggerated use of Hypnotism. If controlling the entire traffic scene is far fetched, the same scene where he hypnotises people to fight kung fu style is out of the league. Also, having destroyed an entire police station, there are supposed to be police searching for him and this guy roams freely in the street for 12 days. Also, not to forget the first half which could have been done with within half an hour.
The movie, though, is a must watch for movie lovers and also for the special reason if you are a Tamizhan.
I give it the rating 7/10
7aum Arivu is a story about Bodhi Dharman (played by Surya) who is believed to have lived in the 5th century and also claimed to the founder of the Shaolin school. Legends claim that he is a Tamizhan - a warrior who was well versed in Indian martial arts Kalari and also good at Hypnotism. After his death, people over there praised him as God whereas he was forgotten by the land where he was born. That is only the first 15 minutes of the movie.
Subha Srinivasan (played by Shruti Haasan), a bio-technology scientist, researches on genes and she claims that she can bring back ancient forgotten talents hidden in the genes by initiating them. She takes particular interest in Bodhi Dharman's case and she traces his family tree down to Aravindan (also played by Surya) who happens to be the descendant of Bodhi Dharman. Subha, in the pretext of being friendly with Aravindan, finds out that his genes shares resemblance to that of Bodhi Dharman. Aravindan gets cheated into believing that it is love and he gets heart broken. Meanwhile, a deadly assassin named Dong Lee (played by Johnny Tri Nguyen) is sent by China in order to kill Subha to stop her from bringing back Bodhi Dharman through her research as they are planning to have a bio war on India through a disease which only Bodhi Dharman knows to cure it. What happens next forms the story.
The film carries well in the first 15 minutes where it is kind of a short documentary on Bodhi Dharman. The scenes are taken beautifully which made fans believe that those are the only best scenes of the movie. What follows next in the first half are boring romance sequences and sloppy songs. When Dong Lee arrives, the film brisks at a higher pace, however, too much of exaggeration almost spoiled the rest of the movie.
In director's defense, his bold move of taking a new storyline rather than a commercial venture is highly laudable. He made people look into Wikipedia to know who Bodhi Dharma actually is. To craft a story from true facts is not an easy task to do. That is where director Murugadoss excels. He could have avoided the romance scenes which are not needed for the movie but however, the fans go to the movie expecting romance between the two leads. Hence the director's concentration on the story plot lets the script down.
Apart from shedding some light on Bodhi Dharman, there are several things to be praised about the movie. First is Surya's dedication - having become a master of his own craft, he never lets down his director with his performance. Also, in one scene, the heroine Subha is in control of the situation where he patiently obeys her orders which I am pretty sure that most of the other top actors wouldn't agree to do. In fact, that is logical because Shruti is a scientist whereas Aravindan is a circus stuntman and Shruti is bound to have some medical knowledge. This is where the director's wit is to be praised.
When Aravindan asks about Subha's father, she replies that he was interested in research which explains the reason why his daughter ventured into research as well. There are several such implicit scenes where the director's witty effort is shown. The other praise should be for Johnny Tri Nguyen who rocked as the villain. Though his hypnotism skills are too much exaggerated (no one can cause the entire traffic to get into mess with his hypnotism), there is one scene where he creates a ruckus in the police station. That scene is shown cleverly through the CCTV and the style imitates that of T-1000 of Terminator 2 fame. If Kamal Haasan did a commendable job as an assasin in the movieDasavatharam, he got a competitor.
Shruti Haasan, though in her debut Tamil movie, has done a decent job and her own Tamil voice has added the power to her role especially in her oral defense scene where she shouts at the Professors for showing disrespect to Tamil. The final scene of the movie, where Surya talks about the forgotten history of Tamil, is like the signature of the movie where Murugadoss makes a special appearance.
Having said that the directory is witty, there are several flaws in the movie. One of such is the exaggerated use of Hypnotism. If controlling the entire traffic scene is far fetched, the same scene where he hypnotises people to fight kung fu style is out of the league. Also, having destroyed an entire police station, there are supposed to be police searching for him and this guy roams freely in the street for 12 days. Also, not to forget the first half which could have been done with within half an hour.
The movie, though, is a must watch for movie lovers and also for the special reason if you are a Tamizhan.
I give it the rating 7/10
2 comments:
Yeah.. over dosage of hypnotism.. Instead if the director tired something like martial arts its wud ve been a good action block i guess :P
ya... you are right.. should've shown martial arts more in the movie...
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