#CelluloidCritic

Critic - No.176 Director: Anthony Chen Producer : Anthony Chen, Huang Wenhong, Tan Si En Casts: Yeo Yann Yann, Koh Jia Ler, Christopher Lee, Yang Shi Bin Language: Mandarin, English, Hokkien Genre: Drama SYNOPSIS:  A secondary school teacher, Ling, shares a special, self-affirming bond with her student Wei Lun that develops into a thorny, complex entanglement. REVIEW: Premiered in Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, Wet Season has already garnered the attention of festival circuits with a whopping 6 nominations at the Golden Horse Awards 2019. Anthony Chen makes a striking comeback after his stunning debut with Ilo Ilo (2013) that garnered the Cannes Camera d’Or. Chen continues to show his strength in handling women’s emotions realistically and maturely through the lead character Ling, a secondary school teacher in mid-thirties who is going through rough patch in her marriage. After failing to conceive after 8 years into the marriage, Ling und...

Critic - No.175 Director: Atlee Produced by: Kalpathi S Aghoram, Kalpathi S Ganesh, Kalpathi S Suresh Casts:  Vijay, Nayanthara, Vivek, Yogi Babu, Jackie Shroff, Kathir Language: Tamil Music: A.R.Rahman Genre: Action / Drama / Sports SYNOPSIS: A do-gooder don Rayappan (Vijay) wants his son, Michael a.k.a Bigil (Vijay) to uplift the life of his people by becoming a soccer champion, but fate draws the youngster into a life of violence. Situation brings him back to the track of soccer after 7 years and will Bigil manage to fulfill his father’s dream this time? REVIEW: After a dream run of churning two blockbusters with Vijay, Atlee has whipped up yet another masala flick which is perfect for the festive season and this time with more blatant social messages that are placed organically in the story. As the synopsis suggests, the first half of the film focusses more on the mass treatment with hero glorifying moments, hill old predictable ‘Baasha’ or ‘Mer...

Critic - No.174 Director: Tushar Hiranandani Produced by: Anurag Kashyap, NidhiParmar, Reliance Entertainment Casts:  Bhumi Pednekar, Tapsee Pannu, Prakash Jha, Vineet Kumar Singh Language: Hindi Music: Vishal Mishra (songs), Advat Nemlekar (score) Genre: Drama SYNOPSIS: Saand Ki Aankh depicts the story of the 60 year old sharpshooters, Chandro Tomar and Prakashi Tomar who serve as an inspiration to many women in India who are still trapped under the male chauvinistic ideology and domination.   REVIEW: Following the loud voice about feministic view on women’s dream in film like Dangal, Saand Ki Aankh presents the real story of two rural grandmothers who shot to fame due to their sharpshooting achievements in their 60s. The most charming thing about the film is the way it presents the male chauvinistic characters as mere caricatures and the way it sets up how the well-respected men are merely relying on the work of their wife. Tushar also presents gri...

Critic - No.173 Director: Vetrimaran Producer: Kalaipulli S. Thanu, V Creations Casts:  Dhanush, Manju Warrier, Pasupathy, Balaji Sakthivel, Prakash Raj, Teejay Arunachalam, Ken Karunas Language: Tamil Genre: Action / Drama Music: G.V.Prakash Kumar SYNOPSIS: A family from the underprivileged class is on the run after the teenage son kills a rich man from the upper caste.  REVIEW: Vetrimaran is one gem of Tamil cinema who tries to address relevant social issues through hard hitting real stories that are also presented to the taste of mainstream audiences. His combination with Dhanush has always worked and Asuran is no different. With Asuran , Vetrimaran delivers a solid engaging drama through an adaptation of the novel, Vekkai written by acclaimed writer, Poomani. He touches on the casts division and the atrocities that followed in the 60s to 80s in the villages of South India through this thriller drama. However, he doesn’t throw the socio-political...

Critic - No.172 Director: K.V. Anand Producer: Allirajah Subaskaran, Lyca Productions Casts:  Surya, Mohanlal, Arya, Sayyesha, Samuthirakani Language: Tamil Genre: Action / Thriller Music: Harris Jeyaraj SYNOPSIS: A Special Protection Group officer, Kathiravan (Surya) has to identify the threat to the prime minister and the nation. REVIEW: K.V. Anand’s Ayan (2009) and Maatraan (2012) with Surya, clinched an important place in the list of gripping contemporary action thrillers in Kollywood. In fact, it gave Surya, his much needed boost for his second leg of career. The expectations were sky rocket from the word go for Kaapaan and does it touch the target it set to hit? The film is quite clear in what it wants from the first scene, when the plot of threat for the Prime Minister is introduced. And then the story shifts to a village where Kathir, a commander who is in undercover to find out more about the threat behind the Prime Minister....

Critic - No.171 Director:  Parthiban Radhakrishnan Producer:  Parthiban Radhakrishnan Casts:  Parthiban Radhakrishnan Language:  Tamil Genre:  Crime / Drama Music:   Santosh Narayanan (song) & C. Satya (background music) SYNOPSIS: An emotionally unstable murder, Masilamani (Parthiban) suspect defends himself to a few cops which helps in unfolding some intriguing revelation. REVIEW: R.Parthiban is one of the most unique storytellers in Indian cinema who constantly have tried to push boundaries in the industry. But of course, a fair share of his previous films have backfired, while some gems went by without being given the right recognition it deserves. Nothing has dampened the spirits of this fighter and he comes with another innovative attempt with  ‘Oththa Seruppu’  that features a solo act by himself. He gets us hooked with the very first scene where Masilamani (Parthiban) gets accused of the murder and starts defending hims...

Critic - No.170 Director: H.Vinoth Producer: Boney Kapoor Casts:  Ajith Kumar, Shraddha Srinath, Rangaraj Pandey, Abhirami, Vidya Balan, Andrea Tariang Language: Tamil Genre: Crime / Drama Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja SYNOPSIS: When three young women are implicated in a crime, a retired lawyer steps forward to help them clear their names. REVIEW: It’s never an easy task to remake a courtroom drama like ‘Pink’ that not only bold that resonated so strongly with all sets of audiences. Director Vinoth had a mammoth job to translate the flavour of the film without diluting the strong content of the source material and he has come out from the hurdle with flying colours. The film doesn’t deviate much from the original and follows through the intense courtroom drama of how a retired lawyer who is suffering from bipolar disorder helps a girl fight a case or attempt murder on a wealthy man’s son. The film travels with jet speed and intensity that leaves no room for any ...

Critic - No.169 Director:  Rajesh M Selva Casts:  Vikram, Abi Hassan, Akshara Hassan Language:  Tamil Genre:  Action / Thriller Music:  Ghibran SYNOPSIS: Vasu (Abi Hassan), a young medical trainee, after rescuing one of his patients from a murder attempt finds out that his pregnant wife, Aathirah (Akshara Hassan) is abducted, and the kidnappers demand the patient he saved in exchange for her release. REVIEW: It was an exciting news for Indian film buffs when two solid actors join hand for a project knowing that both of them guarantee quality projects with fine performance scope. Well,  Kadaram Kondan  does pay off a little with the trademark brand of Rajesh’s action set pieces married with Ghibran’s wall to wall background score. Similar to his debut film, Rajesh adapts yet another French thriller film,  À Bout Portant  (Point Black)  and gives more important to Vikram’s role that was minor in the original. As seen in the s...

Critic - No.168 Director: Kumaran Sundram, Abbas Akbar Writer: Jaya Rathakrishnan Casts: Puravalan, Ashwini, Guna, Indra, Arvind Naidu, Nisha Kumar, James Kumar, Malene, Thavanesan, Nishana, Sankari Language: Tamil Genre: Family Drama Episodes: 62 Music: Vicknesh Saravanan, Kala Charan SYNOPSIS: An ex-military officer father, a kind and supportive mother, three smart and capable daughters - Raagavan and his family seem to have it all - happiness, wealth and an unshakeable family bond. Secrets get revealed that threaten to break apart the family. REVIEW: You don’t see much TV series reviews in this blog but sometimes, some work you stumble upon will push you to talk or debate about it. One such work was ‘ Uyire ’ a 62 episode long form drama that reminded me of my favourite Singapore TV series, ‘ Nijangal 2 ’ that was aired 7 years ago. This spiritual similarities is not purely coincidental as both series were helmed by the same creative team. As suggested by the synopsi...

Critic - No.167 Director: Jordan Peele Casts: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker Language: English Genre: Horror / Thriller SYNOPSIS:  A family's holiday plan turns chaos when a group of doppelgängers begins to terrorize them. REVIEW: “We are Americans ” – the most terrifying line in the film that Jordan uses to reiterate his socio-political symbols in ' US' after an impressive debut with ‘ Get Out ’ that strikingly placed his argument on race and class. ‘ US ’ might not be as genre defying as ‘ Get Ou t’ but certainly throws more ideas on us. After the credits, the film opens up with young Adelaide enjoying the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with her parents in 1986. While her father is distracted, she wanders off and ends up in a house of mirrors. The power winks off, and she finds herself standing next to what looks like her own reflection or actually...that is the hook! The credit sequence that foll...

Critic - No.166 Director: Magizh Thirumeni Casts:  Arun Vijay, Vidya Pradeep, Tanya Hope, Yogi Babu, ‘FEFSI’ Vijayan Language: Tamil Genre: Crime / Thriller Music: Arun Raj SYNOPSIS: The murder of a young girl creates great confusion among the cops when they find out that the suspect found has a look-alike. REVIEW: Magizh Thirumeni has a good track record, be it his first breezy but low-key romantic flick, ‘ Mundhinam Paartheney ’, his breakthrough action flick, ‘ Thadayara Thaaka ’ or his latest thriller ‘ Megamaan’ . He has progressively established his strength for writing thrillers and ‘ Thadam’, for me is his best in structuring suspense. From the first romantic track with the lead, Magizh buys our attention with his unique staging of flirting. From early in the story, we are introduced about the look alike, Kavin and Ezhil. The suspense is then effectively built after a murder.  The investigation scenes are well crafted and I particularly liked...

Critic - No.165 Director: Karthik Subburaj Casts:  Rajinikanth, Vjay Sethupathi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Simran, Trisha, Bobby Simha, Sanath, Mega Akash Language: Tamil Genre: Action / Drama Music: Anirudh SYNOPSIS: Kaali (Rajinikanth) joins a college as a hostel warden and sets things in order in his own playful way, from playing Cupid to a young couple (Megha Akash and Sanath), romancing the girl's mother (Simran) to putting the rowdy boys, headed by Michael (Bobby Simha) in their place. But there is more to him than meets the eye. REVIEW: Even though Rajini has been actively churning out movies in the past 2 to 3 years, one might miss the Superstar’s core style that is perceived to be his unique strength and the reason for dominating the industry for the past 40 years. But thanks to the die-hard fan turned director, Karthik Subburaj who fills the void by creating pure ‘mass’ film with Rajini’s style stamped over each frame. Karthik Subburaj, who is know...