Asuran (2019)

to any movie viewer there might have come a time that a singular talent of an individual, never heard or seen before mesmerises you that you instinctively know he is good and will be great in future. to me one such case was the film Raanjhanaa (2013) that introduced me to that Actor Dhanush, i knew not who he was and what was instore for him in future but there was this sense optimism that i will enjoy his film for sure.

I had chosen this film through seeing its poster and his face on it, thinking its doesn’t seem like a masala film and knowing him might be worth it, I was right. Asuran (2019), meaning the Demon is a Tamil revenge drama film that showcases the fight of an underprivileged class against the rich (classic David vs Goliath) done with a analogy of inner demons.

now it is still a commercial film it has its hero moments yet the realism that is presented counterbalances the film to hinder criticism. what makes this film work are soundtrack that keeps the dread perceptible and the dynamic acting of the cast having the likes of Manju Warrier, Prakash Raj. yet to me its a Dhanush film a film where his range as an actor comes into play where he portrays the character in different times.

this is a film i enjoyed added by the fact it pertains to my premonitions years back is just an added bonus.

127 movies down……..373 to go

see you soon

Piriyavitai (Tamil goodbye)

Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

When i first watched Kick ass (2010) i was in high school and super heroes where things of comics and cartoons, thus seeing a movie about superhero origins along with being subversive and Bloodier than norm pushed it to ranks of films i greatly enjoyed.

i wasn’t aware of a sequel to it until i saw the movie poster during a visit to the cinemas for some other random film, and i distinctly remember feel this is not gonna turn out to be good. I don’t know what psychic powers i unlocked for a moment there but after so many years i was RIGHT.

Kick-Ass 2 all in all feels like a fan made film about the first one than an actual sequel. there is this tonal dissonance the film has that always just persists. the first film felt more linearly amping up the stakes to the eventually climax of bazooka to the main boss, without truly feeling jarring yet the sequel doesn’t understand this lesson and adds divergent plot points to make you question the movie genre itself. over the multiple characters, limp humour, cringe and a serious lack of finding the flow it would be really hard to say i enjoyed this film.

all this could be me being cynical and remembering the first film in rose tinted glasses. yet for my money Kick Ass 2 is another victim of the sequel curse.

124 movies down……..376 to go

see you soon

Goodbye

Bharat (2019)

Bharat is a Hindi film from 2019 and is based on a South korean film Ode to My father (2014), which i have not seen but i guess was better that this film.

this is a masala film and it never presented it as anything else, with Salman Khan in the lead the film is bound to go towards the mass appeal, and that by itself isn’t bad the film being based on an existing work along with a masala film suffers the pothole having guessable twist and progression. the film does impose its grand scale onto you and glimpses the epic it wants to be

the one proper criticism i can muster about this film is the fact that this film suffers from pacing even though through out the film stuff keep happening the film feels draggy, and i reckon a crisper edit could solve the issue.

if you sitting down with the intention for a masala film you will be entertained.

119 movies down……..381 to go

see you soon

Allvida

Léon: The Professional (1994)

A film i have been meaning to watch for a long time,

from a exiting opening to a mellowed middle and ending with bombastic climax. the film was so enjoyable. the film is about a exception hitman that ends up taking in a 14yr old girl has his protegee due to her parents being killed by corrupt DEA.

both Leon and mathilda are in many ways incomplete and their relationship allows them to find what they were missing and grow. the way the film character studies the cast opens the many layers each of them have. the film is very stylised, this complements its action and feel. presenting scenes that both suck you in and entice you.

the thing about this film that i ranked higher than its action story everything else will be casting, i after viewing and thought who else i would have liked to see in place of all the characters and i came up short of decent list and any such life to me is always a sign of well casted film. from Jean Reno to Natalie Portman do such a dynamic role and shoulder the huge task of making us care and empathies with the characters before the action pumps up. but to me the one that stole the show was Gary Oldman, man he was great cunning ruthless and crazy in such a nice package who isnt to enjoy his performance.

this film is an easy recommend by me and a easy pick for weekend watch.

110 movies down……..390 to go

see you soon

goodbye

Overlord (2018)

every once in a while a good sleeper film comes into your hand, you will not have any expectation and the film will not be overly great yet when it ends you will be satisfied by the experience and remark how did this flew under the radar.

great films always find their audience but the good films have a bit harder time, many will become cult classics and many will stay silent till a new soul finds them in a corner of their playlist. this is a very interesting experience one which i had last time when watching Upgrade (2018). their was hardly any chatter about this film to my ears its rare to find films that no one talking about to appear in my playlist and after vertigo i felt a easy non great film was on order to prepare for the next great one.

i never expected much thinking it would be like another war movie guns soldiers actions the whole shabang and it was all that with a simple twist. during WW2 Nazi experimenting to make super soldiers using human sacrifice and Black tar substance that flows beneath a french town. maybe be generic in many cartoonish sense but the film was entertaining enough to quench any such concerns.

the mass media presentation of the d day has always been the valor of the soldiers, the film adding the sci-fi-ish element made it uniquely odd that i was engage just to see where they took it. though nothing outlandish happens its still fun to see an Fantasy side quest like chapter to the WW2. just like in Inglourious Basterds (2009) utilizing the theme of war but changing aspects to make a its own something.

98 movie down………..402 to go

see you soon

goodbye

Godzilla King Of The Monsters (2019)

Featured

there few things that are just dope, cool plain exciting………2 giant kaijus fighting each other is one in that list.

think about it for past few years the tread of the final big bad guy is just the same concept like that kaiju fights invented, films like Avengers and Avatar have their own similar diluted kaiju to hype up action, films like Pacific Rim goes all-in into the idea and Anime adores this format. so no wonder people think of this as cool. yet the OG of this genre is obviously GODZILLA.

i know this film is bad, writing, tone concept all seems a bit forced and dry to a point it’s obvious to even people that just went to watch big beast fight just for the heck of it. the human element of this film though a good attempt seems a bit lacking. also the same point about big cgi fights that have become such a common place that it has diluted the excitement such scenes now muster and this film is just kinda filled with them………some were really cool and some were there to pad the time. the intention of the series was obvious from the beginning something everyone whats to do create a connected universe, monster verse and i am really spilt on it ya i will watch it but when their eyes are so far ahead i fear they gonna miss whats right in front and in front is unhappy or unexcited people that what more from these kaijus.

now points i liked…..Ken Watanabe seriously the only person i was enjoying in the movie (except the kaijus), when ever the two Godzilla and King Ghidorah fought basically what i sat down to watch anyway.

I would be lying as hell if I don’t acknowledge that I enjoyed this film just for the fact I never had an ounce of expectation from this film, I wanted a monster fight I got a monster fight. I was a happy camper.

94 movies down……………….406 to go.

see you soon

goodbye

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

if there is a film that i knew about have had the chance to watch it many a times yet missed knew the actors involved, but just left off for no real reason u get the tile of this essay

Kung Fu Hustle

during my young naive child-days when i thought Jackie Chan was the only Chinese movie star (yes i was super naive), a pleasant surprise in the form of Shaolin Soccer came into my life it is still one of my most chill relaxed re-watchable movies watched enough times for my mom to have noticed and commented about me watching it again. thats when u know u went to the deep end. thus i had high self placed expectation on Stephen Chow next film.

i never went actively searching for his new works, being more of a fall to my lap from heaven mentality, by the time i found it my interest had diluted yet i sat to watch bits and pieces only to leave in between this was a pattern of years to a point i knew very thing of the movie yet never watched it completely thus yesterday i sat gritted my teeth used my valuable excess time provided my the global cough cough.

this scene has been done so many times but i laughed hard here.

and how was it very good it had been around an year or two since the last time i saw any scene of the film, i had a fear my knowable about the scripts might ruin my enjoyment and i am happy to announce nope its still fun it had me laughing an few times and many chuckles. honestly watching it was unique in the sense it was both nostalgic and new.

it is a pretty popular media by itself and i dont find many who haven’t seen it before but if u haven’t do watch it. i didnt do much of a review as i went more down the memory lane.

lets add some good points fun dialogues and subversion of troupes, yet really enjoyable fight choreography. the biggest plus for such a wacky film is the self established narrative is supported or believed to an extent we also buy into in to the wacky notion. as for bad points the ending was a bit generic yet was fun in itself so no complain.

91 movies down………………409 to go

see you soon

再见 (Zàijiàn) (See you again in chinese)

Samba (2004)

A movie that is in my sooo bad its good list, a generic masala film of the early 2000’s.

its basically a story about a guy Samba (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) who wants education to be the priority of his village and for that requires a quarry for stone for the school, and is hindered by the antagonist (Prakash Raj). thus he basically goes on a killing spree.

i don’t need to go into the details to diss this movie, it itself those that spectacularly, odd character dialogues, the female lead had the photo of the protagonist from the start even loved him yet didn’t realise him when he was in front of her, yup that checks out, the protagonist does a random 4th wall break moment to preach the viewers on education and an abrupt change in tone from action romance to comedy into the 3rd act

the coolest part of the film was a small scene where Samba takes the goons head and places it in front of the car tire and drives on……yes it’s morbid but till this point, I was laughing of all the silly dialogues and sequences of fights and the story. when this came on I had to stop and replay just to be sure of what happened and thus for making me replay a scene in this film I award it my 2nd favourite scene of the film. now you might ask whats my favourite

in the climax of the film samba has to fight off the goons and Pasupathi (the main villain Prakash Raj) while his nephew is hung on a tree branch with a firecracker style bomb with the string on fire it matters of moments before the bomb explodes what is Samba to do to save his family, well obviously ask the boy to Pee on the string to extinguish it and Voile the film ends with the final punch and boy save. After all the fights, Tone shifts, Cringy dialogues the film went through it was the perfect summation that it ended this way……Peeing saves the day.

honestly, I had given up on this movie and thought to stop watching first 20 min of the movie and thought to go see IMDb just in case this is an old-time good movie that might just get better down the line, and surprise it wasn’t this just strengthen my argument to stop. then you ask why I completed the movie well its all thanks to the review this movie has on IMDb. which gave the movie 10 stars and called it

Best concept and best purification values by Kodali Nani anna
khaleeluddin (IMDb reviewer)

85 movies down………..415 to go.

see you soon

veedkolu (telugu goodbye)

Maari 2 (2018)

around a year or two back i had watched a film the prequel to the one i m reviewing here called Maari a Tamil Action comedy masala film, which was more entertaining than i thought. packed with one-liners action sequences and cliques beats yet the whole film gets carried by the charisma of the lead Dhanush. the small local don who’s antics and fight against the cops was the basic premise.

all in all it was a good one-time watch movie that had no reason for sequel, and then i found this Maari 2, it has a sequel so might as well jump into it. it was a pleasant watch a similar one time watch like its predecessor yet, i will cut to the chase i didn’t like it.

even though the film wasn’t my taste, the Don look was really good imo.

the film had its moments but lacks the charm and charisma the 1st had though Dhanush does bring it up a watchable amount. this film also takes a much or heart-felt and emotional approach compared to the 1st one. and that is my main issue with the film this shift felt brought drastic changes to the character that was there initially and changed the tone of the film. whereas the 1st one was more light-hearted and funny, the second feels like imitating the comedy tone while being mediocre.

the film overall feels like a script that could work by itself but got pasted with the name Maari to increase the sale of tickets, which to me is the worst manner of sequel making as it disrespects the initial movie. my advice to the future viewers is not to watch this one especially you liked the !st part.

84 movies down……….416 to go

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Piriyavitai (Tamil goodbye)

Dhammu (2012)

another one of the masala films, unfortunately not a good one.

the story is about a orphan (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) that decides to get adopted by a Rich family so that he can marry his love interest (Trisha Krishnan) who herself is a rich heiress. the trouble comes when the adopted family has a serious and deadly rivalry with a equally powerful family of the region, thus being a heir of the family he has to take on the responsibility of this blood feud. as the story progresses we also get to know that the protagonist was all along the actual heir of the family who was sent to the city to safeguard him from the blood feud by the family.

this film utilises a very common action film troupe through out its run time, high paced action sequences one after another and coupled with shock twist through out the story beats to create a film that is high on action but low on substance.

like most film of this sort the story is weak by nature, to me this was extenuated by the fact that the writers decided to make the protagonist the real heir of the family removing the initial orphan status he had, this bugs me because before this it felt our guy was a good person that gets incorporated into the family gaining their acceptance as well as admiration but now its so that he is the part since beginning, and thus it is mostly his bloodright to have them this part also is done so forced just to give a personal reasoning to the final boss fight.

the fact that i dont once mention or try to remember the main guy’s name should tell ya how much the movie meant to me.

82 movie down……..418 to go

see you soon

veedkolu (telugu goodbye)