Mikko – Page 3 – Mega Power Chit-Chat

A brief summary of March 2015

By Mikko Posted on 2015-04-02 Posted in Monthly summaries No Comments

I don’t always write new blog posts when something cool happens, so maybe I should periodically summarize the most relevant unblogged things from a longer period of time into a single post. This is a brief summary of the most exciting film related things that have happened to me in March 2015.

The blog now has a new domain name and I even managed to write a new about page!
Even though I didn’t yet advertise it anywhere, I made a new high score system for the Magadheera-inspired Warrior Game that I made last year. (My record is now 353.) I hope to add support for touchscreen devices some day but right now I have no idea how to do that. Until that, it’s playable only with mouse or touchpad.
I started the Super Star Project which might have been my worst decision ever. My DVD shelf is already so full! I’m glad I’m not doing a Brahmanandam Project.
Now I’ve finally seen Student No.1 (Telugu, 2001) which completed my list of movies directed by S. S. Rajamouli, and Gangotri (Telugu, 2003) which was my last unseen movie of Allu Arjun as the hero.

Dhoom 1+2+3

I’m quite a newbie to Hindi cinema since I’ve watched mostly South Indian films. While I’ve seen some random Hindi films before, I haven’t seen anything that good that would make me watch more Hindi films instead of Telugu or Tamil films. Still Hindi films are more popular than South Indian films, so maybe I’ve just watched the wrong movies? Now I started to explore Hindi cinema a little more systematically than before. I began by watching Sholay (1975) which was actually quite good. I was surprised how well the songs fitted in the story, as most Indian films that I’ve seen have at least a couple of songs that feel a little random and disconnected from everything else. I also got DVDs of some newer “super hits”, for example Dhoom and Krrish series, as well as some more or less questionable Hindi movies.

Bollywood for Beginners

Just when I started to wander around in the big and scary world of Hindi cinema, one of the greatest Indian cinema bloggers, Filmi Girl, published a book called Bollywood for Beginners. I’ve really enjoyed reading it so far.
I remember a day last summer when I traveled around my home town. I laughed silently in my head because I saw a man that I thought looked a little like Dhanush. Then I came home and read the unthinkable news that Dhanush was making his new film Shamitabh in Finland! I missed a screening of the movie in February but this year the Season Film Festival screened two Hindi films, Shamitabh and Raja Natwarlal, so I got another chance to see it. Both of the movies were worth watching even though I probably missed a lot of references to other Hindi films in Shamitabh. It’s funny that the first Bollywood song shot in Finland is a song about toilets. I also made a fool of myself by some very bad dancing when a Bollywood dance group made the audience to try some dance moves in the cinema hall before the show, but I forgot it as soon as an enormous image of Rajinikanth appeared on the screen in Eros International’s short video clip and said “Let’s begin!” which already was more than enough value for the ticket price.
At least three interesting soundtrack albums for upcoming movies were released recently: M. Ghibran’s Uttama Villain (Kamal Haasan), Devi Sri Prasad’s S/O Satyamurthy (Allu Arjun, UPENDRA), and Ilaiyaraaja’s Rudhramadevi (Anushka, Rana, Allu Arjun). I managed to watch the live stream only from Rudhramadevi’s audio launch event. It was held in two different cities on consecutive days so that they released three songs a day. Anushka made a grand entrance in a royal carriage and some of the dance performances were entertaining (while some others were embarrassing).

Aa Okkadu

I also have to mention that I got the DVD of Aa Okkadu (Telugu, 2009) which has AJAY in hero role! I hope to watch it as soon as it fits into the schedule of one of my friends who also is an Ajay fan.
And finally, I now have Yoddha (2014), the Bengali remake of Magadheera, on (unsubtitled) VCD, so now I’ll be able to make a screencap comparison between the two if I won’t have anything better to do.

Baahubali shirts and hoodies!

By Mikko Posted on 2015-03-31 Posted in Products No Comments

The availability of South Indian movie-related merchandise has been almost nonexistent at least online (I’m not sure what the situation is in India). One of my bad habits is that I’m quite a materialist and like to have items that are somehow connected to things like movies or stories that are important to me. Even posters of the southern films seem to be very rare.

Availability of t-shirts hasn’t been much better than of posters. The super-epic Kochadaiiyaan t-shirt was never available. The website of the Japanese official Eega/Makkhi t-shirt wasn’t very foreigner-friendly. And on top of that, while not really an official movie merchandise, the famous pink panda shirt (known from at least Magadheera and Orange) appears to be sold out!

However, now the most awaited movie of 2015, Baahubali, has took the first step to the right direction to fix the problem. Their official shirts and hoodies are sold by an online store called Whoz High and they can be bought at baahubali-whozhigh.com.

The collection includes t-shirts as well as some other types of shirts and hoodies. I would like to have also a Baahubali t-shirt but I chose to order only hoodies because I didn’t like the designs of the big horse and the lion that much, and hoodies were [at the time of the order] the only type of clothing that came with Prabhas’ epic logo from the movie’s teaser pictures.

I have no idea about the average price level of Indian clothes but INR 799 didn’t feel too expensive for a hoodie so I ordered one in both colors, “Bombay Black” and “Kasol Blue”. Unfortunately the shipping cost to Finland almost doubled the price but I didn’t let that stop me as this was so unique opportunity. The ordering system at the website doesn’t support international orders at the moment but their website gives instructions how to order by email.

The color difference can be seen only in very bright lighting conditions.

I really wanted the blue one because I already have too many black clothes. Unfortunately, in reality the blue hoodie is much darker than in the pictures, so at first I thought I got two black hoodies. The color difference can be only seen in very bright lighting conditions (like in the flashlight of a camera) – in normal lighting they were almost identical. It’s nothing serious, but it would be nice to have more difference in the colors if there are only two colors available. However, I have been very happy with the black one and I’ve used it regularly. I hope it won’t be completely worn out when Baahubali comes into theaters!

Chandramukhi and Nagavalli

By Mikko Posted on 2015-03-24 Posted in Movies, Superstar Project No Comments

Superstar Project 2/174.

WP • IMDb • LB

To begin with, here is Rajinikanth’s title screen for the Superstar Project’s title card gallery. In 2005 it’s already quite shiny.

Chandramukhi is a Tamil superstar starrer from 2005, directed by P. Vasu. It is a remake of the 2004 Kannada movie Apthamitra (also directed by P. Vasu). Besides the superstar, the cast also includes Prabhu, Jyothika, Nyantara, Vadivelu, “and others”.

Chandramukhi is a “hounted house” type of story. Sometime in history, a fatal love triangle had taken place in the mansion and as a result, one of the rooms is inhabited by a ghost of a dancer named Chandramukhi. Fortunately, we have Rajinikanth, an excellent psychiatrist, to save the day. The story is interesting and easy to sit through at least once, but it doesn’t have anything so special that I would re-watch it in the near future. (Watching the sequel two days later was already enough of the same story.)

I have nothing bad to say about the songs either, although I like the more recent Rajinikanth songs more. One funny thing was the song sequence where Rajinikanth is flying kites with his friends. The result can be seen in the following image.

There are two fights in the movie. The first one is the compulsory Rajinikanth introduction fight which once again is very entertaining because of Rajinikanth’s Law of Gravity. The second one feels a bit pointless, but it’s an unwritten law of nature that whenever a character is played by Sonu Sood, he is a villain and therefore has to be defeated at some point.

Another noteworthy gravity moment is when Rajinikanth saves Prabhu’s character from drinking poisoned coffee.

WP • IMDb • LB

Chandramukhi has a 2010 Telugu sequel, Nagavalli, which is also by the director P. Vasu. It is a remake of the 2010 Kannada movie Aptharakshaka (again by the same director). In this movie, Chandramukhi returns and once again a psychiatrist’s help is needed to drive her away.

This film doesn’t feature Rajinikanth except in some flashbacks from Chandramukhi. Instead, the film stars Venkatesh as Rajinikanth’s assistant. I realized that somehow I hadn’t seen a Venkatesh film before, and he actually is quite good in this one. I also liked Anushka’s role as Chandramukhi. Rajinikanth’s authority is in danger as his assistant’s assistant is played by none other than Brahmanandam. M. S. Narayana is in a minor role and he dies almost immediately after his introduction which felt a little inappropriate when watched so shortly after the actor’s death in real life. In addition to those actors, the film also features Shraddha Das who is known for her roles in at least Arya 2 and the Malayalam horrific horror film Dracula 2012.

Though the actors’ performances are good, the movie doesn’t have much to add to the story of Chandramukhi. We get to see a little more of the history part. Also the climax scene is nice. (Now I need to add random thunderbolts to my rules of K/Tollywood drinking game.) I believe that Nagavalli can be watched without seeing Chandramukhi first, but I would still recommend Chandramukhi over this one.

Murattu Kaalai

By Mikko Posted on 2015-03-20 Posted in Superstar Project No Comments

Superstar Project 1/174.

WP • IMDb • LB

The first entry in my new Superstar Project is his 1980 Tamil film, Murattu Kaalai, directed by S. P. Muthuraman. The film is Rajinikanth’s first film with AVM Productions and had highest budget ever in a Rajinikanth film at the time. According to Ramachandran’s book, this is also the film that made Rajinikanth into a commercial hero.

Rajinikanth is a farmer/bullfighter and the story is about defeating a nasty landlord. We get to see bullfighting, a dramatic love triangle, treacherous bad guys, more bullfighting, an interrupted wedding, fighting on top of a moving train, and there are also some very strange-looking jumping stunts in the climax fight scene at the landlord’s house. Overall, the film was a nice watch but a little slow-placed at times.

While doing the Superstar Project, I’ll also try to take screenshots of the Rajini moments in opening credits, as it would be interesting to see when exactly they change into the bombastic spectacles that they are today. Murattu Kaalai simply displays his name without any mention about his stardom.

Student No.1 (Aaj Ka Mujrim)

By Mikko Posted on 2015-03-13 Posted in Movies No Comments

WP • IMDb • LB

The DVD release of S. S. Rajamouli’s debut film Student No.1 (2001) would really need the English subtitles. I had postponed watching it in a hope that someday I would be fluent enough in Telugu to understand it without subtitles. Luckily, I noticed that the movie has been dubbed into Hindi (as Aaj Ka Mujrim) and the dubbed version has subtitles, so I was finally able to watch the last remaining film that I hadn’t seen from my favourite director.

I don’t know much Hindi but I think the dubbing was mostly OK, far from the Russian dubbing style where one man just reads the whole dialogue with a monotonic voice. Watching a dubbed version was a little challenging as the familiar actors had strange voices. Sometimes it’s difficult to follow the dialogue by reading the fast-paced subtitles if you have no idea who is talking. Looks like the dubbing company didn’t ruin the whole movie like they did to Magadheera. At least this time they didn’t remove all the songs.

The movie has Jr. NTR, Gajala, and Rajiv Kanakala in the lead roles. (Rajiv Kanakala is always unintentionally so funny because “Kanakala” means a chicken-fish in Finnish.)

OMG! One of Ajay’s first supporting roles!!!

Jr. NTR’s character is of course the hero of the film. He is a new student in a law college (or was it a love college?) but it doesn’t take long when he finds out that the college has bad reputation because nobody ever graduates — the school is ruled by a violent gang which efficiently prevents all teachers and students from teaching and studying! It’s no secret that the hero is going to fix the situation but I can’t tell much more without spoiling the dramatic interval revelation.

This movie has only a couple of fighting/action sequences which is less than Rajamouli’s or Jr. NTR’s movies normally have but it doesn’t really need any more. Good fighting skills are almost a requirement for any Indian movie hero (except Siddharth) and we see enough to become convinced that also this hero can fight. This time however the hero isn’t supernaturally strong against the bad guys but he still does a couple of cool things, like jumping forth from a sea of burning fuel. (I think I’ve seen this somewhere else before!)

This is again one of those movies that have all the three of them: Brahmanandam, Ali, and M. S. Narayana. This time Narayana is the only one who is somewhat relevant character as he plays a teacher in the college. Ali and Brahmanandam play an engineer and a doctor but they are used only in two scenes and didn’t add very much to the story. However I liked the bad joke that the doctor wants to cut a car accident victim’s leg with a handsaw to save him while the engineer would prefer to cut the car instead.

I guess the songs were nice but I’m not going to do any in-depth reviews of them as I was watching the movie in a “wrong” language.

Story
Star Power
Fights
Comedy
Overall

Student No.1 obviously isn’t among the most entertaining Rajamouli movies but I still liked it very much.

The subtitled Hindi version can be found on YouTube, uploaded by Goldmines Telefilms.

Kantri

By Mikko Posted on 2015-03-10 Posted in Movies No Comments

WP • IMDb • LB

Tonight I watched Kantri which is a 2008 Telugu film directed by Meher Ramesh and starring Jr. NTR, Hansika Motwani, Tanisha Mukherjee, and Prakash Raj.

I didn’t have very high expectations and Kantri indeed turned out to be just like an average masala movie. The story has a couple of nice twists but nothing revolutionary. Jr. NTR was as good as always but this time he had only about average dancing and fighting choreographies. Prakash Raj gave a solid performance as the villain which was expected because he has acted in a similar role for uncountable times. Hansika and Tanisha were used only for the romantic subplot which was ridiculous (but funny) and unnecessary. Tanisha’s role was much smaller than many of the supporting actors’ roles.

The movie has the complete set of the three most frequent Telugu comedians: Brahmanandam, Ali, and M. S. Narayana. This time they are also accompanied by not-so-frequent but funnier Sunil which is funnier also this time. The comedy scenes, which often are long and boring in South Indian movies (because of too fast paced subtitles and sometimes incomprehensible cultural references), are kept short enough in this movie, and most of the jokes are easy to get with a fairly brief amount of prerequisite information of the South Indian cinema. It’s not often that comedy is actually the strongest part of a masala film.

The songs were not very memorable. I already forgot all of them with maybe the exception of “One, Two, Three, Nenoka Kantri”, and one song might have had some lyrics about mangoes…

Story
Star Power
Songs
Fights
Comedy
Overall

Overall, Kantri is not a must-watch movie but pretty watchable for one time if you enjoy watching Jr. NTR. If you’re not yet familiar with Jr. NTR, watch Yamadonga (2007) instead. If the director Meher Ramesh is new to you, I would rather recommend his next film, Billa (2009), except if you like Rajinikanth. Be sure to watch at least Sivaji (2007) before this one or you’ll miss some awesome Sunil comedy!

Sri Balaji Movies has uploaded the movie to YouTube with English subtitles.

MPCC Award for the Most Miraculous Midwife

By Mikko Posted on 2015-03-05 Posted in MPCC Awards No Comments

There are some memorable childbirth scenes in Indian cinema, like in Enthiran (2010) or in Sudigadu (2012), but the most miraculous midwife of them all is definitely the Real Star of Telugu cinema.

MPCC Award for the Most Miraculous Midwife goes to Srihari for the following scene from the 2010 Telugu movie Bhairava.

Srihari saves a pregnant lady, calms down the unborn child with his trademark babble, and beats up some bad guys. Giving birth is quick and easy if there is Srihari protecting you and giving instructions. PUSH I SAY!

Rudhramadevi trailer

By Mikko Posted on 2015-03-05 Posted in Movies 2 Comments

The official trailer of Rudhramadevi is finally here!

Rudhramadevi, directed by Gunasekhar, is currently the second most awaited Telugu film (at least for me). It has a huge budget and its star cast is full of big names like Anushka, Rana, Allu Arjun, Krishnam Raju, Prakash Raj, Cathrine Tresa and Nithya Menen (and Ajay!!!).

The trailer has some funny moments and the costumes look great. However, the visual effects are quite disappointing considering the high budget. (Just look at the sword’s glowing outline in the picture below.) The trailer somewhat reminds me of the 2014 Tamil animation film Kochadaiiyaan which was widely criticized for poor visual effects. Rudhramadevi still is a must-watch movie, but the story must be really extraordinary if it’s going to survive multiple watchings.

MPCC Award for the Most Stylish Shaving

By Mikko Posted on 2015-02-04 Posted in MPCC Awards No Comments

The last Mega Power Chit-Chat Film Award was for the mightiest moustache. Moustaches and beards are very common in Indian movies and shaving them off is not something the characters would do every day. But when they do, some do it more stylishly than the others.

MPCC Award for the Most Stylish Shaving goes to Vikram for the removal of his facial hair in the 2015 Tamil movie I. The event takes place in the song “Aila Aila”.

MPCC Award for the Mightiest Moustache

By Mikko Posted on 2015-01-22 Posted in MPCC Awards No Comments

Now that I have a new movie blog, I felt that there should be a way to celebrate the greatest and most memorable achievements that I’ll come across during my adventures in the exciting world of Indian cinema. This is the first episode of Mega Power Chit-Chat Film Awards!

Indian cinema is known for its moustaches. Usually the size of a man’s moustache seems to tell something about his status in the society – the biggest moustaches can only be found on the faces of the most powerful leaders.

MPCC Award for the Mightiest Moustache goes to Nassar for his enormous whiskers in the 2012 Telugu movie Dhammu. Congratulations! Even the bad guys do not always have moustaches this big. It does not look very practical, though.

Author: Mikko