Naslen reminds Priyan of Vishnu Vijayam Kamal

 

Priyadarshan was about to direct Anbe Sivam with Kamal Haasan but it fell through. Later he directed the Hindi remake of Thevar Magan with Anil Kapoor. Kamal opted out of doing the remake of the film produced and directed by him as he wanted Dilip Kumar to essay Sivaji Ganesan’s role but could do so. Now Priyan who is Kochi for filming of the Hindi remake of Oppam that he directed in Malaylam was present at a promotional event of the film Lokah that has his daughter Kalyani in a central role of a superwoman. Here he startled everybody by saying Naslen was the second coming of Kamal Haasan. Naslen stood up and thanled the Directpr for the compliment. It maybe noted that Kalyani's mother Lissy acted with Kamal in Vikram ( old)

.... “Naslen is a favourite actor of mine. When I used to watch films like Vishnu Vijayam, I noticed the unique charm of Kamal Haasan as an actor. He exuded innocence while also conveying a cheeky confidence. Naslen feels like the second coming of that.” On hearing his words, a visibly moved Naslen stood up and expressed his gratitude, earning warm applause from the audience.

. The mention of Vishnu Vijayam is particularly significant. Directed by N Sankaran Nair, the film featured Kamal Haasan in the titular role opposite Sheela, during his formative phase as a leading man in Malayalam cinema. Earlier that same year, Kamal had already made a striking breakthrough with Kanyakumari, a landmark Malayalam film scripted by the legendary writer-filmmaker M T Vasudevan Nair and directed by K S Sethumadhavan. The film, which paired him with Rita Bhaduri in her debut, marked his very first outing as a full-fledged protagonist and introduced audiences to the adult performer who would soon dominate South Indian screens. It also launched the career of Jagathy Sreekumar and earned Kamal his very first Filmfare Award for Best Actor

Sharing the screen with Kalyani in Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra, Naslen leads what is being touted as one of the most ambitious Malayalam films in recent years. Written and directed by Tharangam-fame Dominic Arun, the upcoming fantasy spectacle promises to fuse myth and dystopia in a striking new visual language. Actor Santhy Balachandran has contributed as an additional screenplay writer and dramaturgist, while Dulquer Salmaan produces the film under his Wayfarer Films banner.

Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra releases worldwide on August 28, clashing with Mohanlal’s Hridayapoorvam. Adding to the festive weekend, Fahadh Faasil’s Odum Kuthira Chaadum Kuthira, also featuring Kalyani, opens a day later.

Priyadarshan, meanwhile, is directing Haiwaan, a Hindi reimagining of his Malayalam thriller Oppam. Saif Ali Khan plays the blind protagonist originally essayed by Mohanlal, while Akshay Kumar is reported to step into the antagonist’s role.

 

 

 

Imternational Honour for Sivan - Mohanlal - Priyan Boxing fight subject next ?

It has been quite some time that Malayalam Cinema has made a mark on the International Cinema. Now the upcoming Cannes Festival in May will see our own cinematographer Santosh Sivan being bestowed with the Pierre Angénieux Tribute. It was startd in 2013 by the festival organisers as honour dedicated to recognising outstanding cinematographers. Sivan joins the ranks of legendary film personalities such as Philippe Rousselot, Vilmos Zsigmond, Roger Deakins, and others who have received this esteemed award in the past. The first Indian cinematographer to get this honour at a ceremony on May 24rd. Sivan will before the event take a Master Class for cinematographers of youmger generstion, Barrozz directed by Mohanlal m his directorial debut, has cinematography by Sivan, He is currently directing the films 'Kaliyugam' in Malayalam and Moha in English. He is also cinematographer for Sunny Deol’s Lahore 47. The film is produced by Aamir Khan and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. Sivan son of noted photographer turned director Sivan , hails from Thiruvanthapuram. His major film outside of Kerala filmdom was Mani Rathnam’s Thalapathy and Roja. The ffirst mainstream film in Hindi for Sivan was Gardish directed by Priyadarshan and starring Jackie Shroff. He had cranked the camera for Rajkumar Santoshi in 1995 for the debut film of Bobby Deol and Twinkle Khanna titled Barsaat. Talking about Santosh, takes me to Priyadarshan. Priyan is under rough weather as it has been quite some time that he delivered a hit On one side we hear that Priyan and Akshay Kumar are coming together, They had given a couple of hits together and had not worked for over a decade. On the other side we hear that Priyan and Mohanlal are coming again for a film based on boxing sport. After Valiban flop, many say that Lal should not do any film with a sport background. Valiban was about Indian wrestling. Some say that the combo will rock. Priyan who is considered good at comedies was frank enough to say that it is era of actors and directorpf hit film Premalu. Lets hope that Lal- Priyan come bvk. From what we hear is that Premalu is rock steady at BO and Mamootty’s Brahmayugam slipped after Manjummel Boys got released. Trade now say that this film will touch Rs 100 cr.by weekend.

Marakkar review: Mohanlal bears the cross for Priyadarshan bad scripting

Marakkar's plus points are production design ( Saboo Cyril), cinematography ( Thiru) - costume designing (Sujith)  and lastly Mohanlal.  Priyadarshan bad scripting of a period war hero subject takes the fizz out of the otherwise technically brilliant film - by far the best that Malayalam film has so far produced.

When you go in for a film with Mohanlal playing the historical character and the title role- you expect it to be in all ways a LAL film. A sort of Genghis Khan of Omar Sharif calibre. What you get is a film that has no characters with emotional connect to audience, a drama like dialogues, badly choreographed war sequences, so many actors whose presence in the film is not needed and a music that is very average ( songs and not BGM). One of the song sounded like a Tamil hit song rehashed.

Pace is too slow and lengthy scenes, some scenes where the emotions are high in content are abruptly cut off, last 30 minutes you get a racy end to the whole film and it looks a bit too hurried and to make up for the 2and 1/2 hrs of boredom that you suffered.

Mohanlal does his best with the scenes that he gets and sheer presence hold the film together. Saddest part is that there is no fan moment or any scene that you can remember from the film. National award jury found VFX fit to get an award and also give Marakkar a best film trophy. Tough the  VFX is not bad as SFX, the jury probably did not actually take note of VFX being evident and not merging with the happenings.  Considering that the work was done by Anibrain who along with their global partner Framestore  had won the Academy Award for the movie Blade Runner 2049. BEST PICTURE ??? . With so many flaws , how does it become India's best film ? Was that year the quality of films that came before the jury even worse ?

I think there is a category that is most popular film and Marakkar deserves it. Even before release the film just through advance booking touched Rs 100 crores and so it fits the bill.  Knowing Priyadarshan's mindset, the film has made the producer happy and also bagged national awards ( one for his son). Siddharth Priyadarshan was the VFX supervisor. What more can one ask for ?