#AskBR &#8211; Endhiran

Do you think we lost a very entertaining and unique villain in Rajnikanth, by making him the phenomenon he is today?

How much did the last scene with the Shankar esque exposition take away from the film? Chitti atoning for his crime and inflicting punishment on himself was too much.

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MANK

#AskBR
Brangan, you mentioned somewhere that your favorite Shankar film is Mudalvan. would like to know why? and where does Endhiran land in the packing order ?. My favorite remains Gentleman and would like to hear what you think of it?

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Pavan

The way Chitti’s comeback unfolds in a dumping yard is terrific. But after the professor’s death, the film turns too loud and jarring. Is it because of Shankar’s filmmaking style, or the film needed subtlety to make the things happening on the screen easy on the eyes? Please comment.

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shaviswa

As far as Endhiran is concerned, I practically loved it. I felt that the balance of masala and Sci-fi worked extremely well. I actually liked it more than the Sci-fis from Hollywood where they actually take the action and science aspects to an extremely level. This was a lot more human. I felt that making a story where the heroine is the attraction for a robot created by the hero himself was ingenuous.

Dr. Borah’s character was ill-developed – have to agree.

For a change, Rajinikanth (Vasee) acted in a regular human character. I don’t know why people feel that this was undermined.

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Naveen

dont you think the romantic portions of the Sr with Aish were totally embarassing ?

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KayKay

#Ask BR

In your opinion, how would Endhiran have played out with the original casting choice, Kamal? Would it have been a significantly different beast or do you feel parts of this are an oddity in the Rajini ouevre anyway? While Chitti is the prototypical Rajini hero in the 1st half and a villain played with the exact strut and swagger you’d expect from a Rajini villain in the 2nd half, the doctor character is definitely an outlier. As the Victor Frankenstein character who’s proud of his creation until it gains sentience, after which he tries to destroy him, Dr. Vasee is a dick in many aspects. He’s physically weak, a neglectful boyfriend, an insecure partner and a spiteful creator.

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shaviswa

I would have prefered Endhiran where Vaseegaran is played by Kamal, Chitti by Rajini and the heroine is someone who is really very good. Also, given that Vasee is a scientist and seems to be a middle aged guy, the heroine could have been a practicing doctor instead of a medical college student. It looked a bit creepy actually to see them romance.

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Ashwin

Do you think one can credit Shankar for introducing a new brand of film making with unconventional plot lines and never seen before situations and imagery just like how AR Rahman brought in a new sound. I thought films like Gentleman, Kadhalan, Indian, Jeans and Mudhalvan had amazingly fresh plot lines. For instance, the idea of a corrupt Governor in Kadhalan was brilliant. There were also some rumours at that time about Sooriyan movie being ghost directed by Shankar who was assisting Pavithran then. How true was that?.The story of Sooriyan itself was far ahead of its times – that of a security officer being made a fall guy after an assassination!

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Vidhya M

I second Shaviswa – Kamal as Vasee, Rajni as Chitti and someone with spunk, say Preity Zinta (the original choice when Kamal was to be the lead) or even Nayantara in her Billa mode or Priyanka Chopra as the heroine. Ash was sava-sava…she did not bring life to the character that was supposed to create an idhayam even in an irumbu manithan!!

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Zero

shavishwa,
Not sure I understand the Kamal-Rajini angle. It’s important for Chitti to look like Vasee (basically, “at your service” variation of Vasee: Vasee + humility – frailties), right?

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Honest Raj

Craft wise Suriyan is a terrific film and is a well-directed one too. I don’t think any of the Tamil films had up to that point used slo-mo shots as effectively as it did. And not to forget the impeccable sound design and breathtaking action choreography. That said, I’m not sure about Shankar ghost-directing it because – in the directorial sense – he never really made a film that came closer to this one. But then, I’m willing to give it a benefit of doubt because the director’s next film, I Love India, was a dud (and by the time Shankar had come out of his camp).

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shaviswa

@Zero – that angle comes in the moment you decide that both roles will be played by the same actor. Else, you could build a completely different dynamic.

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sai16vicky

BR, is the Sujatha story you mention ‘Sorga Theevu’ by any chance? I remember it having some crazy final twist and a story on similar lines you mentioned.

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Vidhya M

About the extent of Sujatha’s influence, since you mentioned Manirathnam’s view – in my opinion, Manirathnam is a different beast (quoting Madhavan). You could single out a Manirathnam film from others’, just by watching any random scene. So Mani’s collaboration with Sujata would have been akin to a takeover or acquisition where Sujatha’s inputs would surface every now and then, but the movie was undeniably Mani’s.

With Shankar, it was more like an amalgamation of ideas. Barring the lavishly shot songs / special effects, one cannot identify a Shankar movie with say the dialogues or screenplay or direction. His themes are similar – vigilantism, corruption etc, but his treatment is based on his current set of collaborators – ADs, Sujatha / Balakumaran / SuBa, even cinematographers (Jeeva notably).

For eg: Sujatha is known for his cynicism and wry sense of humor, devoid of emotional strings or political correctness. You could see this very clearly in Indian – the offhand remarks by Senapathy (Kalai edukka poren), Chandru (calling his own dad Kezhattu….) or in Boys – the words used by Nakul brazenly to describe women (censored later).

Contrast this with Balakumaran’s verbose and sanitised – edhuva irundhalum oru pathu nimisham othi podanum in Kadhalan or Arjun’s lecture to Subasree in Gentleman or Ash calling Prashanth ennappa venamppa in Jeans : for an avid reader of Sujatha’s and Balakumaran’s it was obvious from where / who this thought process originated.

With Mani – a Nayagan (with Balakumaran) and a Roja (with Sujatha) bear no such contrasts (compare Karthika’s character with Madhoo’s – you can see that it was how Mani envisioned his heroines)

Which is why Shankar’s films have suffered since Sivaji (apparently Sujatha’s health deteriorated during Sivaji’s production which explains all the mush that went in the name of wooing (train sequence etc) in that film)

Which is why a SuBa who supposedly has SUjatha + BAlakumaran sensibilities (atleast for us readers – they delve into crime novels as well love stories) has been roped in. For “I” they unleashed the Balakumaran in them where a Sujatha was required. Hope they understand the vibe of 2.0 and give the appropriate output.

PS:the name “Ranguski” (of the kosu in Enthiran) was a hat-tip to Sujatha. Sujata or Rangarajan’s pet name back in Srirangam was Ranguski – as mentioned often in his Srirangathu Devathaigal collection.

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hattorihanzo4784

when Chinese, Japanese and Korean people make big budget movies like “CTHD” and “Detective Dee” they are getting applause from all over the world, but when we make big budget movies like “Enthiran” outsiders look at it as some kind of wacky movie at best and at worst there is derision. Is this our fate? that everytime we make a big budget movie, we will never get the respect of outsiders, because of our song/dance format. Will we ever have our own big budget “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” that everyone will doff their hat to in respect, while sticking to our regular song/dance format?

There is a scene in the movie where Santhanam and his friend use the scientist’s “state of art” laboratory into a makeshift TASMAC bar. The comedy did not work and it felt completely out of place in the movie, actually it was cheap. Was the scene even necessary?

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Ashwin

Do you think that the songs were a let down. It was certainly not anywhere near Rahmans class. By comparison the 2.0 songs seem to be pretty good( I preferred the hindi version). Same goes for the comedy track by santhanam and karnataka. A major let down considering Shankar’s partnership with goundamani, vadivelu and even Jean’s I thought had great humor

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hattorihanzo4784

There is another scene where Aishwarya Rai’s character would have got molested by the fisherman played by Kalabhavan Mani. Combined with the above mentioned Santhanam’s drinking scene can we safely assume that Shankar was unintentionally trying to ruin his potentially career best (at that point of time) movie with gratuitous comedy. Should this be on Shankar’s “to not do” checklist when he and his editor are working on the final cut?

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Ashwin

Honest Raj, thanks for posting that video from Sooriyan. Makes it very interesting for two reasons

The interaction between Rajan and Bob Antony over the bomb reminds me of scenes between Girish karnad and raghuvaran in kadhalan
The slow mo climax scenes leading to the explosion and splattering of body parts over the bonnet of the car is strikingly similar to same kind of climax scene in gentleman

Another connection between these two movies – KT Kunjumon:-)

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Ashwin

You had done a nicely crafted video essay on rajini introduction scenes recently . Was Endhiran the only movie after Murattu kaalai not to have the customary introduction scene!

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Srinivas R

February 2, 2018

#AskBR – The so called romantic portions between Sana and Vaseegaran were so problematic. I ended up feeling Chitti deserved Sana more than Vaseegaran. How much did this aspect bother you? Wouldn’t anyone in the film crew tell Shankar how cringe worthy the romance was?

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Srinivas R

February 2, 2018

How did you like the OTT climax scene? It became very tedious after a point IMO

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praneshp

February 2, 2018

You could single out a Manirathnam film from others’, just by watching any random scene

@Vidhya M Could you point out a scene like that for me, in Kadal and Kaatru Veliyidai?

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Honest Raj

February 6, 2018

Ashwin: And the Amma sentiment portions (involving Manorama) too. Further, the lead role in Gentleman was actually offered to Sarathkumar – it’s difficult to imagine him playing a school boy. 🙂 But, the biggest takeaway for Shankar, from the film, has to be the mini-flashback.

Coming to Kaathalan, I don’t find the Raghuvaran-Girish Karnad portions all that interesting because it hardly had anything to do with the plot (Raghuvaran was there just for the sake of playing a villain), where as in Suriyan it formed the very basis of the plot. Also, it was probably the first film in Tamil that talked about terrorism (albeit not very sincerely like a Kuruthipunal). It was made shortly after the assassination of Rajiv – the whole of the assassination plot supposedly takes place in a nearby “island”.

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Priya

Do you think Vasi is the protagonist? I always thought Chitti is the protagonist. Vasi is just a catalyst.

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Priya

My wish/dream for Rajini is for him to get roles like Amitabh Bachchan gets.

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MANK

the lead role in Gentleman was actually offered to Sarathkumar – it’s difficult to imagine him playing a school boy

Honest Raj, i doubt that. after the success of Sooryan, KT kunjumon had planned India Today with Sarath and Pavithran. but there was a falling out between KTK and Pavithran and Pavithran made the film as I love india for GK Reddy(i think), Sarath jumped ship along with Pavithran and then KTK gave Shankar the opportunity to make Gentleman. so i dont think there was any question of approaching Sarath after that. Shankar’s first choice was Kamal Haasan, But Kamal was more into doing Tevar Magan and Mahanadhi kind of films at the time and had rejected it- read somewhere in an interview with Kamal himself were he confirmed this. after that his choice was Arjun and to put it bluntly, Arjun didnt do anything more than copy Kamal in scene after scene.

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MANK

Agreed hundred percent about Sooriyan, it was a very well crafted film were the nationalist angle was woven very well the rustic tamilian ethos. It Technically brilliant with some great action scenes, were all the masala is mixed in right proportions. There is nothing that Pavithran had done after to prove he had in him to make a film like that , so one could theorise that there were a lot of creative heads behind that film. Not just I love india, he ended up making thirumoorthy with Captain for god’s sake .what a film right 😀

P.S. What always amused me is that the climax of the Sooryan was inspired from Schwarzenegger film Commando and in turn the chase on a horse back through the streets from Sooryan was replicated in Schwarzenegger film True Lies that came after it. 🙂

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Vidhya M