Thursday, June 19, 2008

The 10 Avatars of Kamal in close up shots **New Arrival**

Here are the close up shots of the 10 avatars played by "Universal Hero Padmashri" Kamal Hassan.




Govind , the scientist of the 21st century who discovers this unique virus which could destroy millions of people if it goes into the wrong hands.Kamal is in his natural form of acting for this role.One cannot see anything different in his style.

Rangarajan Nambi , the priest from the 12th century , strong build and looks exactly like a vaishnavaite would be.We aren't shown much of his character but we are shown some of his bones which still existed till the tsunami struck.
Wow , wow ,wow , the funniest character among all is this fellow.He supposedly speaks 5 languages in telugu.His accent is typical to that of an andhra person and his body movements are even more great.The background score for this character is also great.
The American baddy , displaying kamal's depth of language and style even at 50.One of the perfect avatars with no such flaws.
Karate Master , the perfect make-up.One cannot really find out whether its kamal portrayin this character.Only after strong observation will you find some shades of kamal in this character.
Kamal imitates the U.S. President to 100% except for the last dance step in the stage.His body language and voice are perfectly matched to the original.Hats off to Kamal.
Kalifullah , he might seem very stubborn and angry to you but he has been picturised as an innocent fellow with some cliches and hiccups in his language which fitted his character perfectly.
Vincent Poovaragan , well what can we call him , maybe a political activist or something but his body language is superb and one would really feel that a mass' messiah is standing in front of you.He behaves like a "servant to citizens" kinda person.

Man , oh no he is a woman.What a brilliant portrayal!!!!!!I was really dumbstruck seeing this character on screen.Although this 95 year old showed actions wherin she behaved like a teenager,and also that her ears hear things to her pleasure and not most of the things , Kamal has voiced out this character beautifully.This character seemed like "Daler Mehndi" but had no great make up.But , Kamal , man , I just figured out why his fans call him Aandavar.He speaks his punjabi in the perfect accent with no south indian touch to it.He ROCKS!!!!




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Review : Dasavatharam (2008)


A New milestone in tamil cinema


Rating : 3.5/5
Genre : Action/Thriller/Classic

Cast :
Kamal Hassan
, Asin, Mallika Sherawat, Jayapradha, Nagesh, Nepolean, Santhana Bharathi, P Vasu.

Note: Please watch the movie very very carefully in order to really understand the storyline.

Aascar Ravichandran , the producer, who changed the spelling of his first name by numerology , has to really thank the numerologist whom he visited because the name change has really done wonders for him.He really has to be appreciated for believing in Kamal's work and providing him full support even though the former failed to hit the bulls eye in his recent own works.

The film opens with the new production house video for oscar films , a frequent tamil movie watcher might find the difference , and right after that we have the world in Kamal's eyes showing his title "Universal Hero".

The first scene travels from the beach to the stadium where a huge crowd is gathered for some function which one cannot find out what it is for and we hear the voice of Govind Ramasamy (The Protagonist , as we can quite rightly say) narrating a series of incidents.Now, every flashback movie has a hitch , one cannot really narrate the jokes and songs through his speech , well no one is so talented in this world who can really grip you to your seats just through his speech.That is when a huge mass of both literate and "not-so literate" people are listening to you.

So, coming back to the story , as he narrates his first story which supposedly takes place in the 12th century , our view dates back to that period where one can see the rift between the saivites and vaishnavites.The fight inside the temple by kamal when the king's soldiers try to move the ranganathar statue could hav been avoided.Maybe the director wanted a hero's introduction to be stunning for the audiences and add some commercial element.But for a fight in the 12th century period , the stunts were a little too much or as some say unbelievable.The song "Kallai Mattum Kandaal" fits in place and its lyrics perfectly match to the visuals.Nambi's muscles has to be given a special appreciation.



Napolean plays role of kulothunga chozhan who orders the removal of the ranganathar statue which is protested by rangaraja nambi (Kamal in his second of the ten roles).He fights and protests but the king wouldn't accept , so he ties him to the statue and decides to throw them into the sea.Although the king throws a deal that if nambi chants "Om Nama Shivaya" instead of "Om Namo Narayanaya" , he would grant him pardon.So , Nambi starts with OM and the audience is really anxious whether he chants it or not.


The movie is centrally based on butterfly effect or the chaos theory which means that
a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. Of course the butterfly cannot literally cause a tornado. The kinetic energy in a tornado is enormously larger than the energy in the turbulence of a butterfly. The kinetic energy of a tornado is ultimately provided by the sun and the butterfly can only influence certain details of weather events in a chaotic manner.The entire story of Dasavatharam is based on this theory and not about bio warfare, 12th century religious clash or tsunami.
So as per the theory,the tsunami is indirectly blamed upon the 12th century this is what one would infer at the end of the story.

Next in the pipeline of his narration is his own flashback where he still is a scientist working in an american laboratory and researching a biological weapon of mass destruction.Kamal's senior official tries to sell this invention and Chris Fletcher (the third of ten played by Kamal) is sent to retrieve the weapon from Ramasamy when he comes to know of his senior and escapes with the weapon to India.



Mallika Sherawat as Fletcher's assistant fails to create an impression on the movie watcher and her role in the movie could have been played by any other actor having cut the "Kaa Karu..." song which was totally unwanted.

So, not spoiling the storyline any further , the other portraits of Kamal which fall into place as the story progresses are CBI Officer Balaram Naidu,Pop Singer Avatar Singh,95-year old Woman , Japanese Karate Master,7-foot tall Kalifullah Khan,US President George Bush and finally a dalit activist Vincent Poovaragan.

All roles played by the maestro are commendable except for some actions of the 95 year old woman which are quite manly and George bush dancing in the end which could have been corrected and avoided respectively.

Asin,who also plays a dual role,creates an amazing impression on the audience with both her characters played perfectly and her voice really fits into her persona.

The Last scene where Chris Fletcher opens the vial and swallows the virus, is gripping as to what will happen to the face of Tamil Nadu but just then Tsunami shows up (sea water contains NaCl which is required to stop the virus from spreading) thereby eliminating the virus action.I couldn't get it while watching the movie, only after i heard from some great brains , it could really register in my brain too.This is no more a flaw to what i thought it was.Logic has been applied perfectly, its only that sometimes people like me won't understand quite simple things.

Coming to the technical aspects of the movie , Cinematographer Ravi Verman has handled the camera really well and needs an applause.
The Tsunami scene,one of India's first shown in movies is not very perfect with transformers being unharmed when water gushes through it destroying everything else beside it, but it really is a very good effort in re-creating the the disaster on the screen.
The graphics could have been better overall but owing to Aascar Ravichandran's bank balance , it surely is an amazing work.

The songs composed for the movie were not that pleasant to hear when the audio released.One thought,for such a big budget movie, the songs aren't that great but then after watching the movie ,one could contradict oneself because the songs fit right in place and the need of the song is not thought into except for the Mallika Sherawat number.
The re-recording work by Devi Shri Prasad is excellent and he is sure to climb more heights in Kollywood.


The Dialogues written by Kamal are surely worth mentioning especially for the tamil he uses in his speech and also the lighter parts of the movie.
The places where the audio was in english or japanese lacked "readable" subtitles and it went too fast and also the dialogues in punjabi did not have subtitles at all.These could have been corrected by the editor but these stand apart while taking his editing brilliance in the movie into consideration.Excellent work ,kudos to him.

Speaking of the director , K.S.Ravi Kumar , signs off the movie in style.He also has to be appreciated for believing in Kamal's script and deciding to direct the movie for him.He has handled all the character's well in accordance to the script.This movie has brought laurels for him as well.

So, all in all , Kamal's exorbitant budget flick "Dasavatharam" hits 100 on the technical aspects and ideologies but fails to deliver an edge-of-the-seat thriller.One was not really satisfied of watching a full movie after the movie ended as it did not have that much of entertainment quotient except for the viewer to gaze at Kamal with his/her mouth open.Some say it was like a hollywood flick but i say no because it had a quite a lot of commercial elements.
Kamal ,an athiest in himself ,through this movie , tests the presence of god in his brain child "Dasavatharam"(For he has written the story , screenplay and dialogues).
The End of the movie is marked by Kamal, showcasing his make up videos for different characters and if one would start counting as to how many characters he has played , he/she would end up with nine and keep thinking what was the last part or as if the last part really weren't there and thereby blaming Kamal for cheating but the last part is of Rangaraja Nambi whose make up video isn't shown.One needs to really watch the movie seriously and not for finding flaws alone.

Trade Talk : Will not be understood in the B and C centres although his fans will surely pour in to catch a glimpse of the so called masterpiece which indirectly will ring the cash registers.

Final Verdict : Don't forget to catch the universal hero in his 10 avatars because its only Kamal , Kamal and Kamal all the way.
Two Thumbs Up!!



Please do comment on my review either to show your disgust or your appreciation.Anything is fine for me.Also,please feel free to point out any mistakes in my language,opinion or the review as a whole.