The Chaser Review – The Chaser is a South Korean psycho thriller released in 2008. Eom Joong-Ho is a corrupt ex detective turned pimp. He is worried as two of his women have gone missing. He thinks someone is selling them and tries to track him down as he send one of his women Mi-jin to the customer who was the last to see the other two missing women.
The Chaser is yet another brilliant psycho thriller that is engaging throughout. Director Na Hong-jin has narrated a story that has a strong take on the corrupt politics in South Korea. The scene in which the Mayor comes out of the hospital and complaints why there is no press and then run away seeing an injured men walking towards the hospital is very cleverly done. The characterization is done very well, as per the theme of the story every character in the movie has their negative shade. Kim Yoon-seok has performed very well in the role of a corrupt ex-detective and a money minded pimp. The sound engineering for the movie is very well done. Not using background score but the use natural sounds from the surrounding is very effective in keeping the thriller on. Overall if you have enjoyed movies like Old Boy and I Saw the Devil you would like this one too.
Aranmanai Review – Aranmanai is a Tamil horror comedy released in 2014. The owners of a old palace get together in the palace after many years to sell the palace. But things go awry when they encounter an evil spirit in the palace that kills people.
Off late the genre of comedy horror is becoming popular in Tamil Cinema. Movies like Yaamirukka Bayamey did well in the box office. However Aranmanai fails to capitalize on this as it is caught somewhere between a comedy and a serious horror drama. It neither gives you the chills and the thrills not it makes you laugh. The overload of cast and characters leave very less scope for many of them. Only the three leading ladies and Sundar C has some role to perform in the movie. The movie employs plots that would have worked well in the 80s and 90s. Also the length of the movie is very long and makes you very tired and exhausted. If the director had cut down the length, few characters and stayed away from the clichés of age old formula the movie might have been a decent one.
Overall it seems to be a mash up of Sundar C and Rama Narayanan’s movie that may not work well for the present time.
Yaan Review – is a Tamil action thriller released in 2014. Chandru is happily unemployed and enjoys life. When he meets Sreela he immediately falls in love with her, but is forced to find a job if he has to marry her. The job Chandru takes puts him into a life threatening situation. Will he be able to come out of the situation and marry Sreela is the plot of Yaan.
Well Yaan has good casting, brilliant cinematography, great stunts, decent plot but the thread that connects all these together in the form of screenplay and characterization is missing. It takes more than half the movie for the audience to figure out what the conflict is. And still at the end of the movie I was left wondering if it was love or drug trafficking. The climax is absolutely ridiculous. Cinematographer turned director Ravi K. Chandran has a lot potential to make some visually stunning movies. If he partners with some good screen writers he would be able to make very good movies. Some of the visual sequences you would love in the movie are the initial fight sequence, the way the hero recreates his encounter with the heroine, the song sequences and the stunt choreography.
Overall if you are seeing sequences from Yaan in isolation it looks good but when put together in a product it would make you yawn. If you are a fan of stunning visuals and stunts watch this at home or else you would not miss much.
In this week’s Friday Fundas we would see one of the basic units of film grammar – Reaction Shot.
A Reaction shot is the one where the camera moves away from the main sequence to show the reaction of a character to the main sequence. It could be a response to a dialogue or an event in the preceding shot. Reaction shots are usually a medium close up shot.
The famous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a great example of a reaction shot. You see the killer approaching the shower and opening the screen. Immediately the next shot is the woman screaming and then the scene shifts back to the killer and proceeds from there. This might appear to be trivial. Now try to imagine the entire sequence without this single shot you would not feel connected to it.
Reaction Shot – Psycho
The reaction shot is usually present in the shooting script. When the screenplay is written there would be no mention of the reaction shot but when the script is converted to a shooting script there would be mentions of reaction shot.
Usually this is determined by the director’s vision for the script.
Panchathanthiram
In a comedy film the reaction shots play a very important role in making audience laugh. If you can think of comedy movies like Panchanthanthiram you would now be able to relate to some of the very effective reaction shots.
Usually the reaction shot occurs post the actual main shot. However many film makers have improvised on this to show a reaction shot before the actual main shot to make it more dramatic.
Jurassic Park – Reaction Shot
In the movie Jurassic Park as the crew is taken for the first tour around the Park they spot the huge herbivores walking around. Initially Spielberg shows the reaction of the people in the Jeep and then later shows the actual scene to which they are reacting to. This is the first time the audience see a full dinosaur in the movie and this just increases the anticipation and prepares the audience for something spectacular.
Few directors have omitted reaction shots on certain occasions to create a suspense that would be later revealed in the movie.
Sixth Sense Restaurant Scene
In the movie Sixth sense restaurant scene director Manoj Night Shyamalan does not show many reaction shots during the most part of the conversation Crowe’s wife’s face is not shown. Only later when she is signing the cheque her face is shown which works effectively to conceal the secret the climax would reveal later.
Whether reaction shots are present or not present they are very essential to the visuals. Effective use of it is elementary to an engaging movie.
Jeeva Review– is a Tamil sports drama released in 2014. Jeeva is a talented cricket player and aspires to play for India. But community based politics prevent him from getting selected for the national team.
Director Suseenthiran comes up with a sports movie after his much acclaimed Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu. In between he had focused more on action and romance genre in between and his previous outing Pandianadu was a smashing hit. Jeeva is an emotional journey of an upcoming cricketer with amount of things he has to sacrifice in life and the difficulty to get a break due to highly political nature of the selection committee. In the era where people are watching a lot of cricket and many cricket tournaments run with empty stands due to too many matches to be played; it is very difficult to make a movie on cricket and keep the audience interested. Suseenthiran has tried to break this by bringing in the romance angle to the plot. This works well in the first half but makes the script slow during the second half. The length of the movie could have been trimmed to 90 minutes to make it more engaging. Overall Suseenthiran has come up with yet another neat film. It may not be as good as Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu but deals with one of the less spoken community based politics in Tamil Nadu cricket board. The movie deserves a watch for the plot. But due to the slowness of the script you might enjoy watching this at home.
Madras – is a Tamil political action drama released in 2014. Maari and Kannan are rival political party leaders. Kannan’s party has a big painting of Kannan’s father and his political party on a wall in the middle of Maari’s locality. In the pretext of bad omen no one is daring to change the wall painting. Anbu the dedicated party worker of Maari’s party along with his friend Kaali is waiting for an occasion to change the wall painting.
Right from the first shot I enjoyed everything about this movie. After some really bad outings for Karthi, Madras is a very welcome change. After Attakathi, Director Pa. Ranjith has created a very engaging commercial drama. The movie doesn’t go much outside of the North Madras housing board for its entire length but for a few shots. The first half of the movie is just brilliant. If you have lived in a housing board this would bring back some nostalgic memories. The director has dealt with most of the walks of a lower middle class life like the small houses, getting water from common pipe, lack of space for intimacy between couples, young men proposing to girls, football ground, dance groups and many more. One of the most striking things is how the characters are built. At the end they all have a part to play in the story. There are so many of them yet they all have their unique tone and voice. The use of wall as a metaphor to drive the social message of current state of power and politics is brilliant. The screenplay is engaging throughout. It just slacks down a bit in the middle of the second half but soon gets back on track. Santhosh Narayanan’s background score is apt for the drama. Madras is a welcome change in the times where all leading heroes’ movies are not doing so well. If you like political drama and gang fights go and watch Madras for sure.
Burma – is a Tamil thriller released in 2014. Paramanandam alias Burma is a skilled car thief. He works for a financier to seize cars whose due amounts are not settled. While doing one of the car seizing he crosses line with a criminal gang and he has to save the car, his girlfriend and himself.
The movie has a very interesting plot of car theft which is not usually handled as a central plot for a movie. Director Dharanidharan should be lauded for the effort put in here. Believing in a script and making it into a movie is not an easy effort for a new comer. But due to sufficient lack of scale for the project the production quality of the movie suffers to a great extent. Atul Kulkarni and Sampath Raj’s role is not as it is depicted in the trailer, in the movie they have very minimal role to play. The background score is very disconnected which makes the movie disengaging in many places. Overall the movie definitely has some substance in it. If you are willing to see this as a first timer’s effort you would enjoy this movie for the interesting plot it has.
Sigaram Thodu – is a Tamil action thriller released in 2014. Murali fakes his interest in becoming a police officer just to keep his father happy. When his father is attacked brutally by robbers he has to step up to take the police duty to bring the dark forces to light.
Vikram Prabhu is becoming synonymous with action thriller. After his debut movie Kumki he has done back to back action thriller movies Ivan Veramathiri and Arima Nambi. Sigaram Thodu joins the list. Vikram Prabhu’s physique is well suited for action thrillers. However this one does not create the impact like his previous outings. Director Gaurav has just managed to push the bar a little higher than many of the crime dramas you would see on television. The story itself is very small and does not deserve the length it has. One of the weakest points in the story is the villain. The significance of a hero’s purpose is directly proportional to the gruesomeness of the villains. The villains look very weak in front of Vikram Prabhu’s character and it looks like a easy cake walk for him to get them defeated. The element of suspense is broken much earlier in the movie and fails to hold you onto the seat.
Overall this one is an average action drama which can be watched at home for its few engaging parts.
Use of metaphors is very well known form or technique used in performing arts like poetry, novels, short stories, plays and motion pictures. Metaphors usually help in connecting the audience to the art very effectively. This week’s Friday Fundas takes a look at the use of metaphors in movies with some examples from famous movies.
Metaphors involve in using any item, living being or a situation that is very similar to the current context or situation. Movies being a visual medium there are more opportunities in how a metaphor is being handled. Some of the metaphors in the movies are very direct and short lived for a particular instance. For example rough waves in the sea or trees bending in heavy thunder storm are used as a metaphor for depicting the emotional situation of a character. Director K. Balachander has been one of the directors who used very unique metaphors throughout his movies. Some of the metaphors would demand some intellectual viewing as well. In his Tamil movie Thamarai Nenjam the protagonist falls off from the balcony. Avoiding the sequences of showing the character suffering in pain or someone attending to the character; a plantain tree is shown with a stick tied in support to a broken leaf. Many of the south Indian households and their neighborhood have plantain trees and this visual immediately relates to the person who has fallen has broken his limbs and a cast has been applied. The next scene shows the person lying on the bed with the cast.
There is other kind of metaphors used in movies which are prolonged throughout the movie. Different characters interact with it differently at various points of time and it emphasizes itself as the movie progresses. This is a very popular technique used by screenwriters to create an additional layer to the script. Let us look some of the examples here.
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
In the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara fear of adventure sports is used as a metaphor for the internal fear each of the three characters have in their life regarding wealth, relationship and commitment. As each one of them overcomes their fear in the adventure sport they also overcome their internal fear in life.
Little Miss Sunshine
In the movie Little Miss Sunshine the mini-van and its state represents the state of the family. The van is dysfunctional and the family members have to keep pushing it to get it started. This represents the dysfunctional state of the family and their bonding. Even at the end of the movie from a top angle shot you see the van going in a zigzag fashion on a straight road. This depicts that the state of the family has not changed still but they still travel together in the journey of life.
Next time when you watch a movie look out for the use of metaphors. If you can recollect some metaphors you had enjoyed watching in a movie add it to the comment section.
How Old Are You – is a Malayalam coming of age drama released in 2014. Nirupama Rajeev an ordinary stereotypical wife, a mother from a middle class family is losing her identity within her family and then the society. She has to turn her low point around to establish her identity back.
This one is a nicely crafted coming of age movie for a wife, a mother of thirteen year old in a middle class family. Director Roshann Andrews also has used the importance organic food produce and how every household can achieve this right on their terrace as a backdrop for the movie. Particularly after his success of Mumbai police this one is a very different subject and equally very appealing. The use of foreshadowing sequence where in the lead actress is in a traffic block waiting for the president’s convoy to pass by is very effective. Manju Warrier has done an excellent job with her role and is a very fitting choice. Overall this one does not have a single dull moment and engages throughout.
Irumbu Kuthirai – is a Tamil action film released in 2014. Prithvi becomes very quiet and disinterested after his father’s death. He meets a beautiful girl Samyukta and falls in love with her but to win her heart he would need to come out of the shell and take up motor biking he dreads to do.
The first trailer of the movie was very impressive and captures one of the best shot sequences. Apart from that there is nothing much left. Right from the start you see the hero riding the bike slow until the climax sequence. The screenplay is also follows this and overall makes this a very tiring watch. The bike chase sequence has been filmed well and lot of efforts has gone in. However the situations surrounding this are not very interesting. If the movie had focused on its core theme of bikes and bike races rather than romance and all song and dance this would have been an interesting product. Overall it is a slow race.
Khoobsurat – is a Hindi romance drama released in 2014. A fun loving and spontaneous physiotherapist is invited into a highly disciplined and a highly formal royal family to treat King’s paralyzed legs.
Disney princess stories no matter how many times it has been told is an evergreen success formula. But Khoobsurat has taken the fairy tale and made a below average Bollywood romance drama. They had tried to adapt the 1980’s Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s film for this romance drama. Kirron Kher plays the role of Sonam’s mother, Manju; if you remember Rekha played the character of Manju a young fun loving girl in the 1980 movie. Were they trying bring in connect back? The platform for a nice princess story had been set very well, choosing Jaipur as a backdrop is an excellent choice but the screenplay gets derailed in the first 20 minutes of the movie and the writers seem to have run out of ideas and they started to adapt sequences from many Hollywood romance dramas to fill the rest of the movie. The characterizations are weak; they seem to run out of breath very quickly. Sonam Kapoor looks cute and pretty but when it comes to acting her expressions are between A and B.
Quickgun Murugan seems to be a much better outing for Shashanka Gosh compared to this one. You can give this one a skip.
