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Story
Sundara Chola (Prakash Raj) is the king of Chola Empire. He has two sons - Aadithya Karikaaludu (Vikram) and Arunmozhi Varma (Jayam Ravi) - and a daughter Kundavai (Trisha). Aadithya and Arunmozhi are stationed at Kanchi and Srilanka respectively. After winning a battle, Aadithya sends his fellow warrior Vallavarayan Vandiyadevudu (Karthi) on a mission to find out about a conspiracy taking place at treasurer Paluvettaraya (Sarath Kumar) palace. Vallavarayan meets Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) and Kundavai (Trisha) separately. He is given a mission to go to Srilanka and bring back Arunmozhi Varma. Sundara Chola too wants Arunmozhi to be brought back to Thanjavur by force. Rest of the story is what happens in Srilanka.
Artists Performance
Karthi steals the show among the male actors as an adventurous, flirtatious and fun-loving warrior. He gives us relief in terms of entertainment. His character is well-written. Vikram has less screen time, but is perfect as a prince. Jayam Ravi’s character is introduced in the 2nd half. He is excellent as a reluctant prince. The scene stealer among the women is Nandini played graciously by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. It’s a wily and ambitious character. Aishwarya Rai plays it to perfection. Trisha looks beautiful and regal in the role of princess Kundavai. She is superb. Sobhita Dhulipala and Aishwarya Lekshmi are good. Prakash Raj, Sarath Kumar, Jayaram, Rahman, Parthiban, Prabhu and all other actors are aptly cast.
Technical departments
Story - screenplay - direction: This movie is an adaptation of a 5-volume book Ponniyin Selvan written by Kalki in the 1950's. PS-1 is the first part of the film. Since there is so much content in the books and half of it has to be narrated in a span of 170 minutes, the director Maniratnam starts off the story directly without introducing characters properly to us (for the people who haven’t read the book). We do come to know about characters, their intentions and loyalties as the story progresses. Except for Nandini (which is said to be a fictional character), names of all other characters are difficult to memorize. Hence you need to watch the film very intently to know characters and understand the dynamics among them. Screenplay of the film is interesting in the first half as the character played by Karthi is used to drive us around various places and introduce us to the subplots and intricacies of those characters. Maniratnam is known for his class and he follows in his own style while narrating the story. He has maintained that suspense of what’s going to happen throughout the first half. Though pace is pretty slow, things get speeden up towards the climax. We expect the action/war sequences to be more captivating in period films like this. The climax fight appears normal. However, the lead scene to the second part (underwater) is very interesting. I also liked the screenplay in certain parts (how the relationship between Vikram and Aishwarya Rai characters are shown in spaced flashbacks).
Other departments: Music scored by AR Rahman is one of the technical highlights of the film. I personally liked Alanai Neekai song a lot. Other songs are good too (and are mostly situational). Background music is excellent. Ravi Varman’s cinematography is top class. Dialogues translated by Tanikella Bharani mostly complement the Tamil version. Words like ‘athisayam’ which we only get to hear in dubbed films are used. Editing by Sreekar Prasad is good. Action/War sequences in the film are plain devoid of any highs. An event film of this scale needs a bigger VFX contribution to the visuals. Production design by Thota Tharani is excellent. Production values by Madras Talkies and Lyca are of high quality.
Analysis: This review is written by a Telugu guy who hasn’t read PS books written by Kalki. I liked the first half because it’s like a quiz where you need to memorize and make an assessment as several vital characters get introduced on screen. But for an average Telugu moviegoer, it’s a tedious process to memorize and follow so many characters. For Telugu people, Bahubali is the film that set a bar for historical and event films. It’s normal for people to come to theaters with that mindset. Hence it becomes a disappointment for them because there are no commercial highs and action/emotional sequences that give goosebumps in PS1. There is no denying the fact that the director didn’t invest more in introducing the characters to us so that we emotionally stay invested as the story progresses. However, if you take out those expectations and watch the film for its story, PS-1 is a reasonable story-driven class film. I am expecting better reception among Telugu people for part 2 as we get complete understanding of characters and scenario with part 1.
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