Kochadaiiyaan

My review: Kochadaiiyaan

Touted to be "India's first photo-realistic performance capture film", Soundarya Rajinikanth Ashwin's directorial debut, "Kochadaiiyaan" leaves a lot to be desired. Written by K.S.Ravikumar, movie's script is actually rehash of all the old historical fiction movies right from the days when Tamil movie industry was still in it's infancy. It is yet another attempt at trivializing the intelligence and tolerance levels of an average Tamil movie watcher, both in its content as well as the form. 

The makers have almost conned the viewers with the use of all those glossy gimmicky technical terms. In actuality what one sees on screen is a high definition puppet show where the inflexible dolls goes through the motions brought to life only by the mean of good audio backing. Like success of any puppet show is licked to the voices and the music behind the swaying dolls which keep the audience enthralled, in "Kochadaiiyaan" too the audio part of the movie is what that keeps the audience interested. Actually if the makers have just made it as a audio drama, it would have created wonders. Movie has excellent music, both background as well as the songs, and the magnetic voice of Rajinikanth. So it would have really done exceedingly well if it had got a exclusively audio release. The visuals only dilute the impact the audio alone would have managed to create drastically. 

In addition to the puppet like motion of the animated characters, what make one think about the movie as a puppet show is like in those shows in this movie too, there is a song every 10 minutes. Hence by the time second half starts and songs sprout out few minutes in succession, what ever little patience one might have harbored will vanish. So it was actually a terrifying part in the end when the makers give us a hint of a sequel. Instead of trivializing ourselves with arguments like the makers have made it with so much of hard work in spite of having meager budget unlike their Hollywood counterparts, one must aspire of better quality products. Many down south have already shown that even with meager budgets one can make high quality movies on par with Hollywood. 

On the whole, "Kochadaiiyaan" is best enjoyed by watching with not the 3D glasses but with black patches for both your eyes, for the audio alone is terrific, video terrifying. 

Bottomline: High definition puppet show. 

2/5