Chennai Dangerous
This write-up here is full of spoilers about the movie Pattiyal. So, if you are someone who hasn’t seen the movie yet, please stop right here, as you will not find the movie enjoyable after reading this. Anyway, for those who have ventured past that fore warning - the first lesson I learnt from watching Pattiyal is this - if you know that a film is inspired from another film, please do not watch the original first. If you do that, it is going to just wipe off any interest in the film that was inspired from it, no matter how good it turns out to be. That is what exactly happened to me. After reading in the comments section of Balaji's Pattiyal review, that the movie is a complete rip-off from Bangkok Dangerous, I decided to watch Bangkok Dangerous first and that eventually sealed the deal. So, instead of writing how good a movie Pattiyal is, now I have been forced to write to what extent Vishnuwardhan has ripped Pattiyal off from BD and eventually had to rename the title of my post to Chennai Dangerous :)
There is very little originality as far as Pattiyal is concerned. Though he does concede in this Rediff interview that Bharath's character was inspired from a Thai movie, it is a plain lie. Bcos, it is not just Bharath’s character, but almost the entire movie that is a rip-off and at the end of it, you just can not appreciate even the best of things that Pattiyal has to offer. I mean, getting inspired is no big deal, even someone as accomplished as Mani Rathnam does it. But it is the extent to which a director is inspired that matters in the final analysis. There so many minute scenes in the movie that have been completely inspired from Bangkok Dangerous. The name of the hero of the Thai movie is Kong and his friend’s name is Joe. So now lets look at the similarities in both the movies
Kong is deaf and dumb
Bharath is deaf and dumb
Kong's girl friend works at a pharmacy and he meets her for the first time when he catches a cold & he goes to the pharmacy to get a medicine for the same.
Pooja works in a pharmacy and Bharath meets her for the first time when he catches a cold & he goes to the pharmacy to get a medicine for the same.
Its getting repetitive now, as I am typing everything twice. So, let me just type the scenes from the original movie and I leave it to you to take the pain of substituting Kong with Bharath and Joe with Arya. Sounds fair enough?
The person who gives assignments to both Kong and Joe meets them at a tea shop where he hands them over the jobs.
Every time an assignment is given to Kong, he sees the photo of the person to be killed and then burns the photo.
Kong's girl friend lives alone with her grandmother.
For the assignment of killing a big shot, Kong travels from Bangkok to Hong Kong (In this case, substitute Hong Kong with Coimbatore and Bangkok with Chennai)
Joe takes revenge for the rape of his girl friend by killing the guy who raped her. And hold your breath, he carries out this killing in a public bathroom. And after killing him, he fires a round in the groin of the victim.
Then he himself gets killed for doing it.
Kong gets killed in the end for carrying out the assassination of the big shot from Hong Kong.
And to me, this one is the ultimate:
Kong's girl friend who works in the pharmacy also has a friend who is fat.
So, now folks, whoever has seen Pattiyal should be aware of the extent to which Vishnuwardhan has gone to give us a un-abridged version of Bangkok Dangerous. Even the fast camera movements which were kind of new to Tamil cinema has been inspired from the movie. The final point I had mentioned in my list was the killer. Something like what Kamal stole from Life of David Gale for Virumandi. I mean, copying the scenes where a journalist goes to the prison to interview a prisoner on death-row is fine but having the same pair of a woman and a junior intern guy to do that, just speaks of complete absence of creativity on the part of Kamal. (While on Life of David Gale and Virumandi, Balaji’s take on it is a good read. Read it here)
But 2 things stood out, in spite of all this - Yuvan's music & BGM and the histrionics of the lead actors. Yuvan just knows when to do good re-recording. He was just awesome through out the movie, especially in those serious scenes where he reminds us again he is his father's son. The songs in the movie, as has become the norm from Yuvan now-a-days, are very catchy & addictive and the picturization too was OK. Everyone in the movie, starting from Bharath to 'Azhagiya Theeye' Balu, has done their part exceedingly well. For me, it is really hard to make out who among Arya and Bharath was better in this movie. But if dancing is considered to be part of acting, then Bharath obviously was the clear winner. It is not that Arya is bad but it is just that Bharath is just too good.
But for these two aspects of the movie, Vishnuwardhan might as well have changed his name in the credits to say "Story, Screenplay & Direction - adapted from Bangkok Dangerous by Vishnuwardhan". Disgusting, to say the least!!
There is very little originality as far as Pattiyal is concerned. Though he does concede in this Rediff interview that Bharath's character was inspired from a Thai movie, it is a plain lie. Bcos, it is not just Bharath’s character, but almost the entire movie that is a rip-off and at the end of it, you just can not appreciate even the best of things that Pattiyal has to offer. I mean, getting inspired is no big deal, even someone as accomplished as Mani Rathnam does it. But it is the extent to which a director is inspired that matters in the final analysis. There so many minute scenes in the movie that have been completely inspired from Bangkok Dangerous. The name of the hero of the Thai movie is Kong and his friend’s name is Joe. So now lets look at the similarities in both the movies
Kong is deaf and dumb
Bharath is deaf and dumb
Kong's girl friend works at a pharmacy and he meets her for the first time when he catches a cold & he goes to the pharmacy to get a medicine for the same.
Pooja works in a pharmacy and Bharath meets her for the first time when he catches a cold & he goes to the pharmacy to get a medicine for the same.
Its getting repetitive now, as I am typing everything twice. So, let me just type the scenes from the original movie and I leave it to you to take the pain of substituting Kong with Bharath and Joe with Arya. Sounds fair enough?
The person who gives assignments to both Kong and Joe meets them at a tea shop where he hands them over the jobs.
Every time an assignment is given to Kong, he sees the photo of the person to be killed and then burns the photo.
Kong's girl friend lives alone with her grandmother.
For the assignment of killing a big shot, Kong travels from Bangkok to Hong Kong (In this case, substitute Hong Kong with Coimbatore and Bangkok with Chennai)
Joe takes revenge for the rape of his girl friend by killing the guy who raped her. And hold your breath, he carries out this killing in a public bathroom. And after killing him, he fires a round in the groin of the victim.
Then he himself gets killed for doing it.
Kong gets killed in the end for carrying out the assassination of the big shot from Hong Kong.
And to me, this one is the ultimate:
Kong's girl friend who works in the pharmacy also has a friend who is fat.
So, now folks, whoever has seen Pattiyal should be aware of the extent to which Vishnuwardhan has gone to give us a un-abridged version of Bangkok Dangerous. Even the fast camera movements which were kind of new to Tamil cinema has been inspired from the movie. The final point I had mentioned in my list was the killer. Something like what Kamal stole from Life of David Gale for Virumandi. I mean, copying the scenes where a journalist goes to the prison to interview a prisoner on death-row is fine but having the same pair of a woman and a junior intern guy to do that, just speaks of complete absence of creativity on the part of Kamal. (While on Life of David Gale and Virumandi, Balaji’s take on it is a good read. Read it here)
But 2 things stood out, in spite of all this - Yuvan's music & BGM and the histrionics of the lead actors. Yuvan just knows when to do good re-recording. He was just awesome through out the movie, especially in those serious scenes where he reminds us again he is his father's son. The songs in the movie, as has become the norm from Yuvan now-a-days, are very catchy & addictive and the picturization too was OK. Everyone in the movie, starting from Bharath to 'Azhagiya Theeye' Balu, has done their part exceedingly well. For me, it is really hard to make out who among Arya and Bharath was better in this movie. But if dancing is considered to be part of acting, then Bharath obviously was the clear winner. It is not that Arya is bad but it is just that Bharath is just too good.
But for these two aspects of the movie, Vishnuwardhan might as well have changed his name in the credits to say "Story, Screenplay & Direction - adapted from Bangkok Dangerous by Vishnuwardhan". Disgusting, to say the least!!
posted by Filbert at 11:13 AM
9 Comments:
True Nattamai. He has the required talent to make decent movies like AA. He should stick to that rather than trying to rip off foreign movies. Yeah, I have seen Cellular too. Its an OK movie but would be something new for our audience.
I think from now onwards we should make up our mentality that if we see a good tamil movie, it should have been inspired from a movie of different language...
eventually sometime later you come to know that it was a copy of diff movie
Of late, i am hearing that almost all the movies which took tamil film industry one level up are "sutta movies" from other languages...
Kadavule kapaathupa..
Bharani, Remakes & inspirations from Hollywood movies are seen more in Bollywood actually. Its sad that our Tamil industry is going in that path too. But I have to admit that Bollywood movies are inspired from some well-known movies whereas Vishnuwardhan here probably thought he would get away with such a blatant copy.
Treu Sesh, now we have to start digging to find out the original of AA. If I had not seen BK first, I would have definitely admired Pattiyal a lot. The movie is very good but stealing as much as they have done from another movie is just unforgivable.
I read the story outline in imdb after that comment and realized that the outline was the same but this is amazing. i wanted to see BD too but i guess my questions have been answered!
just 1 more q - my fav scene in 'pattiyal' was the one where arya and bharath practice with their new gun in the waterlogged warehouse. i thot it was stylish and picturized with elan. is there an equivalent scene in BD?
I would be happy if I come to know that AA was not inspired from any other movie bcos this guy clearly has talent and I look forward to the next original effort his :)
Thankfully no Balaji. That scene is not there in BD, reason being the fact that all through the movie the guys in BD were using guns and so they didn't have the transition scene from knife to gun. I too liked that particular scene and that is one reason for myself having a little bit of confidence in Vishnuwardhan inspite of this blatant copying.
great post. I will watch the Thai Movie. I do have some confidence in Vishnuvardhan thought Pattiyal seems to be a shameless copy.
Same here Suresh. I too have some confidence in Vishnuwardhan. And yeah, do watch the Thai movie. I will try to watch the Mohan Lal movie that you have reviewed in your blog.
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