Irandam Ulagam (2013)

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Dreadfully Boring

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This film sets a benchmark in Indian cinema. A fantasy film with creativity at its peak. General audiences often draw comparisons with Avatar, One thing to be made clear, IU is not a mainstream fantasy story like most Hollywood films of the similar genre. Selvaraghavan has related the Sufi and Zen concept in plot. His direction, screenplay and dialogs were flawless. Arya's performance was excellent in the first half but was just good as Maruvan. Anushka as both Ramya and Varna was excellent. The songs by Harris were melodious. However, Anirudh's BGM was not up to the mark as few parts of his score had reminiscence of '3'. Selvarghavan has to be lauded for his concept in this story development that has never been seen before. This is not a film, its a fairy tale. Indian audiences should be prepared to accept a change in film genres and watch it with an open mind with wisdom. All those negative reviews are by critics/viewers who lack wisdom and rational thinking. Its obvious that general viewers lack the ability to decipher simple metaphors in few scenes of this film. The only question, when Indian audiences like Hollywood films like Inception though its depth is significantly complex, why cant they accept much simple and straightforward quality Indian films like IU and the rest? Those mindsets have to change for Indian cinema to progress.

Just finish watching the movie, and am bit confused how to put my review exactly.. I saw the movie by myself in Theater, just to gain the whole experience unbiased.I felt it was a good movie.. at least till the intermission.. It has stunning visuals, good looking actors and a decent screenplay.. but after the intermission, I started waiting.. waiting.. and waiting for the movie to move.. Just imagine you are shown a eye-catchy wallpaper, and made it to watch for quite some time, till a point you get annoyed.. That's how I felt for most of the time in the second half of the movie. I felt like nothing was happening on the screen for many minutes in the movie. There was too many void gaps in the movie IMO. Removing those gaps would have made it a good movie.. But still, the Eye candy movie at the least will impress everyone by its visuals.About the crew: I loved Anushka in this movie, more importantly I felt the warrior role suited her the best so far. Arya was great parts, but felt he wasn't at his best in few parts. Kudos to the Costume designers, Cinematographer and VFX team. Selva is a great movie maker and I have no rights to criticize his work, but I had sat through his movie. I wouldn't have complained if he hadn't made me to sit in theater and wonder what is going on in the movie and left me wondering for too long, till the movie continued itself.Anyway just for the Visual style and decent first half, I would rate it 5/10. I wish I could rate it more, but I can't.

Thanks to How far will you go for love asks Selvaraghavan through his latest film's tagline, but having seen the trailer of Irandam Ulagam the question on everyone's mind is how far has Selvaraghavan gone with his imagination and if he's taken Tamil cinema the distance with him? Irandam Ulagam is a tale of fantasy involving two worlds with several elements that are universal, including the pair of Arya and Anushka. In each world their relationship is provided with its own unique acts and dynamics.The power of love and the warring between good and evil are not the only things that are universal, as it appears that superstitions of black tongued curses and bar songs too are common place around the galaxies. But the director uses those nuances to make the audience feel at home in his created landscape just as he points out the crimes of men ill-treating women – a thread which gives Anushka's character Varna her personality.As the shy doctor Ramya and as the fierce warrior Varna, Anushka is simply at her best showcasing a wide range of emotions and stunts. It is her performance that stands as a pivot for the rest of the story to take shape. Arya as the warrior, with his massive physique reminds us that there is hardly anyone else in the industry who could have been so fitting for this role. The Georgian actors featured in this film definitely deserve a word of praise for their efforts to get their Tamil lip sync correct. But it does invariably add some kind of artificiality to the proceedings. The other peripheral characters like Venkatesh Hariharan and Padma Raman are good in their fleeting appearances.The film's biggest strength is its visuals and credit to the creative director Merzin Tavaria and the team at Firefly Creative Studios for putting out one of the most VFX rich Tamil films without making it seem too jarring. It's easy for the cinematographer's work to be buried under such vast amounts of VFX but Ramji's precisional framing and lighting is what serves as the backbone for the VFX. The same can be said about Kola Bhaskar's editing as he painstakingly pieces together scenes that are heavily layered with CG work.For a music director who's barely 3 films old scoring for this film could be a daunting task but Anirudh comes out triumphant with a great background score which doesn't let down the narration. Its a disappointment that a couple of Harris's songs don't have room in this 2 hour and 40 minute visual spectacle. 'Kanimozhiye' and 'Panangkalla' have come out well.Irandam Ulagam, no doubt, is a movie made with lot of passion, courage and one which had demanded lot of effort from the filmmaking team. But Selvarghavan's idea of pure love may not necessarily find acceptance with everyone which results in the concept or the characters feeling emotionally detached from the audience. Also, the leisure paced screenplay and some character inconsistencies in the first half could add to the audience's restlessness.

Movie Begins With Madhubalakrishnan(Arya) Who Is Dying.. He Starts Narrating The Thing Happened From The Turning Point Of His Life till "Another World".Characters : Madhu Balakrishnan/Marava(Arya) & Ramya/Varna(Anushka) I Don't Want Explain Further More.. Just Give It A Try(Watch At Your Risk) Plus Point Of Movie : Arya, Anushka, Harris Jayaraj, Costume Designers, Ramji(Cinematographer), First Half Minus Of The Movie : Bad Picturisation Of Songs Which Rocked In Top Charts, Mannavanae By Shakthi Sree Gopalan Is Chopped Half... Two Songs( Vinnaithaandi Anbe, Raakozhi) Were Missing Along With Theme Music, Aniruth's Irritating BGMs and Selva's Asusual Style which doesn't matched for this flick.Selva Raghavan Said That "Irandam Ulagam/Varna Was His Dream Project".. I Think He Had Suffered Heavily From Worst Nightmares..