April 21, 2008

For 25th, I pray !!

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With an ambitious storyline featuring 10 characters, ‘Dasavatharam’ will have contemporaneous messages encompassing such concerns as the environment, science and faith. “Dasavatharam has a lot of Al Gore in it, and also Ramanujar,” he says.

Describing the film as “honest to the core,” Kamal says he has explored religion at length. “Are we going to continue using the same blunt tool…religion,” he asks.

Is there a strong story line that elevates it from other blockbusters that we have seen in recent times? “For one, there are 10 characters, ranging in scope from a Ramanujar and a Galileo to a particle physicist. Computer graphics bring to life many of the scenes.” ‘Dasavatharam’ has convinced him that audiences were ready for good film stories even a decade earlier.

Kollywood

14 responses to “For 25th, I pray !!”

Sathya

April 22, 2008

Kamal is always great the best of the best of the best film in tamil ever made

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Sathya

April 22, 2008

Kamal is the greatest of all actors in tamil this is master piece

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kamalfan

April 22, 2008

LG, Sorry to post a big comment.

Its a significant admission by Kamal when he says in the interview that “It’s not as though there were no egos but the project sailed smoothly thanks to frank and creative exchanges”.

Going by the track record of Tamil filmmaking, this has to be interpreted to mean that Kamal almost always had his say, he being also the story, screenplay & dialogue writer.

Many of the pre-release hype surrounding Dasavataram, reminds one of the errie similarities it shares with Aalavandhan.

Then also, a hitherto successful producer Kalaipuli Thanu was roped in as producer, to pour crores into making of Aalavandhan which had overshot its budget many times over the original plan. Oscar films, till Dasavataram, have managed to float above water in all their projects & here they are tied up with the second costliest Tamil movie and seems to be spending equal, if not more, amount on its promotion by inviting Jackie Chan, Amitabh, etc. for its audio release (May be Oscar Ravi intuitively believes Dasavataram has NOT got enough mass pulling star power already). Hope Oscar Ravi doesn’t meet up with the same fate which descended on Thanu after Aalavandhan bombed big time at the BO.

The next similarity is the then hitherto successful star director Suresh Krissna, FIRST time had to bite the dust in Aalavandhan by silently acquiesing to the whims & fancies of an ego-ist Kamal. Does the same fate await the till now reliable K.S.Ravi Kumar too? Going by Kamal’s above admission, it seems so.

Another significant similarity Dasavataram has with Aalavandhan is its MD. It was Shankar-Ehsan-Loy trio from Mumbai who were roped in to be the MDs then; now, its the turn of Himesh to “nose” his way into Kollywood from Mumbai with the blessings of Kamal. Hope Himesh’s output also doesn’t go the same way as that of SEL.

All in all, I feel, the higher the hype, the bigger will be the disappointment levels, if Kamal’s way of film-making doesn’t meet up with audience expectations. Going by his “recent” Hey Ram, where Kamal poked his nose in almost all departments, I hope against hope, that market forces (read audiences) don’t force Kamal to do a Eleventh role also for Dasavataram – that of “being a movie watcher” too, because theatres showing Dasa could not attract enough audience.

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Ramki

April 22, 2008

I couldn’t agree more with every single word written in Kamalfan’s comment.. and I am a Kamal rasigan too.. Am petrified at how this movie will turn out considering all the hype.

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Keerthivasan Rajamani

April 22, 2008

Kamalfan and Ramki, I wouldnt worry about that. I liked Alavandan. It was Dhanu’s problem, if it didnt get hit.

Lets not worry about other’s problems. Lets not start thinking how people will accept it.

It is enough if the movie is good enough for me.

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gp

April 22, 2008

Agree with Keerthi. If you want to make a movie with an A grade star and you know hes going to demand perfection then be prepared. If not dont take the plunge.

Marketing is a vital factor, almost bigger than just making a movie. How well you manipulate the mass, the imagination makes it a winning pic or not. I would not say Kamal is mocking the fans or such, he gave very good movies, the people did not understand, go figure. But one day when you watch some of his movies alone focusing on the subject matter, then you would understand what hes trying to tell. I dont mind sucking up to an egoist if he delivers stuff you and I cant think of. What hype is there, all movies are hype, we can absorb Ajith and Vijay hypes, and other stars, why cant we watch a Kamal hype.

And how come no one who have reservations of this movie or any Tamil movie talk about how they sell and oversell the movie way before releasing it. There is no big budgeted flops in the Tamil industry nowadays…I dont know how the distribution system works in India, but they do sell the movie well outside. Coupled with network channels, airlines channels, dvd, etc etc etc.

If only Tamil movies can jump into merchandising that works.

Alas, its just a 3 hours fun ride, some movies worth the rewatch, some dont. But Im just happy to see him making movies and not retiring. Coz there isnt much of a successor lined up. One day when we only get action-chick-trash_song movies, we will think back at the past stars contribution. Its a proud thing Tamil movies are the best and still is…compared to other regional languages.

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Mahesh Subramanian

April 22, 2008

Finally the trailer of dasavatharam is out. The video can be checked here: http://trueleo.blogspot.com/2008/04/dasavatharam-trailer.html

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Directhit

April 22, 2008

i guess the worried souls would have taken a look at the trailer and found peace LOL!!

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Prasanna

April 22, 2008

The trailor looks very cheesy, and has more of KSR than Kamal. Well, this is a disappointment, but I also know very well that a trailor cut could have been done without the supervision of Big Boss. So, hoping the film is more classy than what is shown. But on the brighter side, this trailor might work more for the general “mass” audience and might pull them in to the theatre. I mean I saw more of smashing cars than of the USP of the film – whcih could actually turn out a good thing, when compared to the Aalavandhaan fiasco. The hype of aalavandhaan actually showed all the USP of the film, and whetted the appetite – but the film was a disaster! The only parts which were interesting were already shown in the trailor. I am hoping the reverse logic works here for the Dasa trailor!

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Lazy Geek

April 22, 2008

Kamal Fan, With that long comment, you have made people think aout dasavatharam in a diff perspective. However I wish you are wrong:)

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raj

April 22, 2008

amen to you two guys who posted before me. Hit the nail.From a commercial perspective.
But we have to remember that Hey Ram was a masterpiece and cannot be compared with Abhay and Dasa.It is in a different league. Aalavandhan had its own quaint charm, flawed but genius in its own way.Couldnt sit through parts of it but the parts that worked, worked fabulously.

That was well worth a couple of bondy producers. I mean, there are enough Vijay movies that flop – they may not be expensive in the abhay sense but sure they hurt the producers. it is okay if a few producers are hurt by Abhay type movies. I mean, there would be a 1000 producers bankrupted by stupid movies!

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Guna

April 24, 2008

I should first admit that i am a rajini fan (i was a kamal fan once but then decided what i truly wanted and enjoyed in movies and just changed sides :))

The problem with this anticipation of whether the movie will click or not is not unfortunately on the hands of kamal or the producer. it is unfortunately on the hands of us (the fans).

kamal fans are totally divided and they are kind of confused on what to expect from him (i am talking about the entire mass and not just the few of us here in this forum debating). I happened to catch “anbe sivam” in sathyam and during mid half of the movie even his own fans started shouting and raising catcalls and the entire audience became silent with disappointment. I thought that the movie was brilliant (if after all movies like forest gump, gladiator, english patient, shawshank can win an oscar anbe sivam should be given 2 for its treatment). But unfortunately the movie bombed and even sites like sify wrote it off as a disaster. On the other hand movies like vasool raaja was lapped up by the audience (which is a pure commerical one) while singaravelan bombed (which is till date a comedy classic and much better)

i think kamal fans are totally divided into wanting something like a commerically winning movie, hollywood style scripts and great drama, total masala, something novel etc. Unfortunately with the current trend and likes it is too tough to have everything packaged in a single movie. On the other hand, rajini fans dont expect any such thing. They just want unadulterated masala for 3 hours (the only reason why baba flopped :)). Kamal is a genious but since his fans are divided the tension happens during his each and every release

btw, dont compare kamal and vijay and all please. it is great insult for genious like kamal.

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Kamal Fan

April 24, 2008

Just saw an interview of Kamal on sify. Also watched the Punjabi song. First things first. Guruji appears confused while talking about the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wplU9yRiUc0

Sounds eerily like this is not coming from his heart.

The song looks, well, like the trailer 🙂 Normal movie stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhA-WCby1fo

Now that I have said that, let me end with this: I am a great Kamal fan. Thus the overly critical approach.

BTW its intriguing how we piece apart any small bit of info that trickles down about Dasa, and form conclusions. And i am the best example for that really bad habit!

But suffice to say once i enter the theatre to watch the film, i go in with an open mind.

I liked Hey Ram, but the screenplay did not work for me. The way Mahanadi moved me, Hey ram did not. And it could have.

Too many stories, too many ideas.

Even Aalavandhaan had some brilliant scenes. But as a film, it was a huge disappointment.

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Lazy Geek

April 24, 2008

Prasanna, thanks for the interview link and the song.

That was the usual confident Kamal talk. I wonder if he is all tensed up by the hype. not that he is in such a hype for the first time.

Let’s see how the movie plays out.

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