I am a big time movie buff. When I was living in Mumbai, I knew many people who worked in the film industry and so I would be very much in touch with all newest releases. When in Kuwait, it was strictly english movies. But in Mumbai, I became more flexible and started experimenting. Apart from the regular hindi movies, I watched some marathi Mi Shivaji Raje Bhosale Boltoy, which was pretty good, and even some bhojpuri Deshdrohi(Please note, I couldnt bear to watch the entire movie, only some 40mins of it. How bad? Well there were 4 songs in the first 20mins).
And last but the not the least, what I will be talking about the most in this post, The South Indian movies.
During my school days, many of my class mates were from south India. So growing up I heard alot about the films from down under, but never really got a chance to watch any, or didn't really bother much about it. My knowledge about south Indian movies was limited to the names of the actors, Mohanlal, Nagarjuna and Rajnikanth. I watched a few hindi movies of Rajnikanth, but none of them really had much of an impact. After I came to mumbai, Rajnikanth released his movie Sivaji, with much fanfare. I decided to watch it in the theatre, just for the heck of it(only tamil prints were availabe). The newspapers had given the movie rave reviews and some news papers went as far as to give it 4.5/5stars, even though the reviewer didn't know tamil. Imagine my surprise when I found that shows were booked for the next 3weeks..! Rajnikant had a cult following with people dressing up like him, acting like him and even dancing, in the middle of the theatre, everytime he danced on screen.
I wasn't able to watch Sivaji till alot later, but all the hype and hoopla about the south Indian movies drew my attention and pretty soon I was reading and lookin out for movies from down below. One of the first I watched was the ridiculously titled Indra: The Tiger. The plot of the movie is so unbelievably impossible that you just can't help but watch the movie. It revolves around two sparring families from a village and how one man sacrifices everything he has for the welfare of the people....yea right...Today Chiranjeevi has a political party and a fanatical fan following. He is regularly in the news. I happened to watched the hindi dubbed version on star gold, which regularly airs dubbed south indian movies. The only turn off is the long advertisement breaks, because of which I have to keep checking the information bar more than once to keep track of which movie I am watching.
Pokkiri is another brilliant example of south Indian movie making prowess. I will be honest and say that I watched it only after watching the hindi version, which I found a lot better, all thanks to Salman. But most of the cast and director were the same, but its just that salman has a certain aura, which took the film to a different level. The original tamil version(which is actually a remake of a telugu movie with the same title) was a blockbuster in its own right.
Chandramukhi is simply pure awesomeness. Rajnikanth is cool and Jyothika Saravanan who plays the character Ganga, who personality disorder brings about Chandramukhi is even more scarier than Vidya Balan in Bhool Bhulaiya as Maunjalika.
Another great south flick with personality disorder as the subject is Anniyan (Hindi:Aprichit). The main guy Ambi is superb, especially the climax where he shifts his personality from the timid Ambi to his other flamboyant and violent alter egos. When it was released, it was the most expensive tamil movie made that year, costing nearly $8million, which is relatively cheap compared to bollywood and hollywood counterparts.
Finally we come to Sivaji. I had to download it and watch it when I came to Kuwait. Rajnikant is old. As in seriously old. But somehow he manages to pull off what could be one of the most awesome south indian movies I have watched with finesse, somethin actors half his age fail to do. I mean come on, while every other actor simply pops the chewing gum in his mouth, Rajni instead chooses to ricochet of any object or person close to him. He has many different looks in the movie, like bald, blonde(shudder) and classic Rajni. He addresses some serious through the course of the movie. Rajnikant is originally from maharashtra, but found success in Tamil Nadu. He is has achieved demigod status and is said to be Indias response to Chuck Norris.
Bollywood tried to spoof the south indian film industry with Quick gun Murugan. They had a take on everything from the costume to the accent, but exaggerated everything to such an extent, that the end product was simply annoying. In conclusion I can say that south Indian movies are cheap and exciting. The storyline is primitive, but at the same time gripping. They are so ridiculously improbable, that its actually good.
Here are some MINDBLOWINGLY AMAZING SCENES that u just have to check out.
lol..just realised even i have a few south indian favorites....=D
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