It is
Another film from the house of film makers who lack the more basic of senses.
Plot
A deep baritone voice over starts off telling us about the origin of the founder of Shaolin temple, a South Indian (Suriya playing Bodhidharma). And a long enough period episode which hits the benchmark mediocrity in most departments, just like the rest of our population who carry the film maker tag with a bit too much pride. A bit too much to keep them away from basic detailing and crowd control.
Bodhidharma leaves to China for some unscripted reasons, ends up at a small village (whose population keeps fluctuating depending on the number of extras they could gather on a given day), cures a badly picturised local epidemic just by grinding a few green leaves and also saves the village from the attack of badly portrayed bandits in a badly choreographed fight.
Centuries later…
Aravind (the hair gelled Suriya) works in a circus and falls for Subha (Shruthi Hasan) who’s there for some sort of research (the bio-tech major is the only detail written for her).
After plenty of random scenes and songs, the protagonists save the country from the bio-war China launches (the Chinese of our films: Stern looking spiritual freaks, so spiritual that they can control you by staring hard).
What’s good?
Like many a big budget films, the expensive cinematographer we manage to hire is the only one that provides a bit of relief whenever he’s allowed to.
What do we pay for?
We are at a point where it seems like all we pay for are the untimely songs that are shot abroad, fair skinned strip tease and agonisingly long action sequences. Whatever happened to the ‘start point’ called screenplay.
Actors
Suriya had always managed to seem less idiotic than most of the films he’s been in, he does it again.
Shruthi Hasan’s no less than most of the male star kids that deny the fact that they should act too.
Verdict
Think of a scenario where you are called for a free screening and pay whatever you feel like at the end of the show. This film in that context wouldn’t let me pay more than 10 rupees (and that’s for the air conditioning).
