7aam Arivu : Tamizhan’s Pride

Until a month ago, I don’t even heard this name Bodhidharma and all on a sudden the term ‘wiki bodhidharma’ went on to be the popular search in India during last 1 month. That’s the massive success that the movie ‘7aam Arivu’ achieved. I was a bit disappointed to see mixed reviews until I watched the movie on Saturday, as I expected this to be a clean-sweep hit like Gajini. Here is my personal review of this movie.

The first 20 minutes of the movie gives the best impression due to heavy money shed on the locations and most importantly recreating the historic events that happened 1600 years ago. Surya as Bodhidharma just impresses with his expressions and stage presence though he haven’t delivered much of dialogues. The Chinese song in the first bit was just cherry on cake. Later, the story gets back to present day and we see Surya again as an entertainer working in Circus. The whole story plot can be told in 3 words Bodhidharma-DNA-Aravind. Here are the good and bads about the movie.

Good good, I Like it

Obviously, the first 20 minutes are amazing with well done cinematography, stunts and extraordinary BGM. Then, enters the villain Johnny. Stand out part was he never talked Tamil (unlike many vijaykanth movies where all country terrorist speaks good Tamil) and he carried himself well with gestures & emotions. Surya’s acting in both roles shows how matured he is getting in the art of acting. Surely, he could better what Kamalhassan achieved ( I sincerely wish) Next note worthy point is the actual intentions of the Director himself. He just showed his class by going out of the box, pick a forgotton character in Tamil history and showed how he went to be the founder of Shaolin Kung fu. As ARM mentioned during the launch, this movie will make Tamil, PROUDER. Indeed, if not for Bodhidharma, for AR Murugadoss who showcased what a class means to modern day Bollywood directors. Tamil Cinema for sure travelling in right path.

What the #$@$!@

While I enjoyed the never been attempted stuffs in this movie, there are few let downs that I felt, though I am not too worried about that. Shrutihassan, pretty & makes good chemistry with Surya, irritates with her Tamil accent. It’s a shame that the daughter of a legend in Tamil film industry can’t get her accent right. Is it attitude? Probably. The needless songs are another issue. I personally felt the heart-broken-surya’s song in the railway tracks and the second duet song totally messed up the flow of the movie and made the audience feel waiting-for-the-song-to-finish rather enjoying it. Besides, all the songs always reminded Harris Jeyaraj’s old tunes. Next thing that hurts is the over exaggeration of the art, Hypnotism. I agree this is a art and achievable but when you see this villain uses this as primary weapon at will is like actually insulting this art. Also, the over lengthen stretch where Johnny does rapid-hypnotism at every one to kill Surya was a bit annoying and why in Indian movies, all the civilians should die except the Hero and his pair?

Wow moments

Bodhidharman’s stunt, neat job by stunt team.

The explanation of what is DNA and how it works. Also, the explanation about Bio-war. These are a bit documentary type but much needed to know. I wonder if this actually reached C center though.

When Surya says ‘There is a difference between courage and betrayal’

Editing, the way they showed how the virus spreads was brilliant (though tiny bit)

BGM, especially first 20 minutes and the rest of the movie

Verdict

A must watch movie for Tamils to know how proud they can be and a must watch movie for Indians to see a good out-of-the-box content and some quality acting from the hero.

P.S : There was a dialogue that says 9 countries together attacked Tamil race. I know who the Tamil race was but what are those 9 countries ? Please leave it in the comment if you know.