Kochadaiiyaan

"Kochadaiiyaan" as a Rajinikanth film has all the elements to satisfy his fans. It has a grand introduction scene, which is followed by an extremely inspiring song, breathtaking stunt sequences, mass appealing dialogues and most importantly the superstar himself in three larger- than-life roles, doing everything that's impossible to do in real life. But "Kochadaiiyaan" as an animated feature, which is made using motion capture technology, fails to live up to the expectations of all those who watch a Rajinikanth film just for the sake of entertainment.

We have a tried-and-tested revenge story. A son has to avenge the murder of his father, who was killed trying to protect the lives of thousands of soldiers of a kingdom. Rajinikanth plays both son and father; Rana and Kochadaiiyaan, respectively.

The problem is not with the film's story because a Rajinikanth film never has a story. It's always about him and what he does on screen to entertain his fans. Sometimes even the most stupid act pulled off by the superstar will make a houseful of audience applaud in merriment. Such moments were missing or were limited in "Kochadaiiyaan", which heavily suffered from creating an emotional connect with the characters.

Every time Rajinikanth and Deepika hugged, you couldn't feel the passion in their romance. It looked as though two cartoon characters were made to romance one another. Because of this even in the most emotional scenes of the film, you feel emotionally disconnected. Several artificial instances such as these make the film boring and the characters lifeless. All this makes you come to the conclusion that the film would've worked wonderfully if it was a live action feature. Come to think of it, "Kochadaiiyaan" would've definitely looked magnificent in live action form than in the half baked animated format that only looks colorful but not legendary.

In layman's terminology, motion capture technology is supposed to recreate real characters as realistic as possible in reel. But most of the characters suffered from identity crisis and you could only identity them from their voices. Actors such as Aadi and Sarath Kumar were the terribly looking animated characters on screen, while the rest such as Nasser, Deepika and Jackie at least had some major references to be related with their real self. The biggest problem with the characters was their eyes, which mostly looked dead. Eyes speak a lot about a person's emotions and because most of the characters had dead eyes, we couldn't build an emotional bond with them.

Rajinikanth was recreated to near perfection. Of course, there were certain issues with some of his physical features but he looked overall satisfying. Most importantly, his mannerisms were intact in the animated format and that was one of highlights of the film and it certainly gave audiences a reason to love the film at regular intervals.

Rahman is the film's biggest saving grace and it's his music and background score that breathes life into the film. The songs looked visually spectacular but their placement sometimes affects the film's narrative. Another highlight of the film was its extremely short running time of 118 minutes. It's a rarity to see such a short Rajinikanth film but that might just work in the favor of "Kochadaiiyaan", which could've irked the audiences with extended running time.

Hardcore Rajinikanth fans will enjoy the film once but even for them revisiting it is nearly impossible.

Kochadaiiyaan first performance capture movie in India. It is not an easy thing to create a mega budget animated movie with a good marketing status in India. It is possible only with the presence of Superstars like Rajnikanth. Expectation among the fans were high (Kochadaiiyaan visuals will be similar to Avatar or Adventures of Tintin), anyhow trailer received a mixed response only.

But a historic story with energetic dialogue leads the movie till the end with decent result in this brave attempt. The big name Rajnikanth keeps cheering always. Another big name A.R.Rahman, made an experimental BGM through the movie which keep us attractive.

Positive signs of performance capture technology:

-Absolutely brilliant 3D effects in the action sequences which is new to our fans.

-Legendary actor late Nagesh is recreated.

-Hope in future we can reach the Hollywood movies with a reasonable budget.

Cast also includes Bollywood beauty Deepika Padukone which will be a big box office factor in North India. With this summer Kochadaiiyaan is going to be a good entertaining movie for family audience.

Remember Kochadaiiyaan is not a Hollywood movie like 'The Adventures of Tintin' or 'Avatar' but it is the best Indian animated movie.

Verdict: If you watch the 'Kochadaiiyaan' in big screen defiantly it would be a great experience.

I remember after watching Avatar, for the first time I saw ALL of the audience sitting until end of the credits.

Today, I saw it happening again for the first time for a Tamil movie. Malaysian Indians being very conservative, I was even surprised to see some of the ladies (not girls) clapping at the end of the credits. I have never seen it happen for an Indian movie in Malaysia. That shows the brilliance of this movie.

I loved it, some scenes such as between the father and son before the father is killed even made me shed tears. The Dance of Shiva and the fight scene of Princess Vadhana fighting with 'villain' stands out for me. I'm thinking of going for a second show, the first for me for a Tamil film.

Loved it.

Kochadaiiyaan will mark a shift way we perceive Indian cinema. I came up with an open mind to accept the film on whatever the graphic quality but it stunned me to the core. Good content and full of my thalaivar all the way thru. Absolutely loved it being a die hard fan of Super star. I know that graphic was not up to Hollywood standard and I don't want compare it at all. What are the positive outcomes in India cinema -- Kochadaiiyaan is a welcome change to all run of the mill stories. I strongly believe that in years to come we can see many more producers willing to invest in Indian animations films and technologies. Coming back to film -- its been ~4 years to see my thalaivar on screen and I want this movie to be all-thalaivar stunts, dialogues, and dance moves. I came out of the movie with full satisfaction and time well spent. I will watch this movie again, again ... just for my thalaivar. Not to forget the performance other lead actors everyone did an amazing job and hats off to the director "Soundarya Rajinikanth" and writer "K.S. Ravikumar"

One may easily predict the graphic quality of Kochadaiiyaan, from the 2 min trailer as - "not up to the mark". They are not to be blamed, as Kochadaiiyaan stand below the fellow movies like Tin Tin, Avatar (as they claim). But what the people don't understand is that it is new to Indian Cinema as many of them have not heard of the technique before. Even the film is made in one of the Hollywood studios ( Centroid ) it failed to show the difference, may be they used their amateur techies for their small client (budget of the movie is just 125 crores Indian Rupee) . After all, as I said, it is a first attempt. But we have to admit that the production failed to understand- " First impression is the best impression".

Enough about the tech-quality !!!

Talking about the story, it is simple, crystal clear, don't-think-too- much-just-sit-and-enjoy type. For a movie hardly running to 120 minutes, what we need is a clear plot and bounding screenplay. I think the script writers knows it. It is an Indian movie, so expect some music numbers. Background score is done by Academy Award winning A.R.Rahman. RAJINIKANTH - the man made it once again. It is truly his own show right from the title card. We all know his voice can make wonders and yet it does. It is a treat to his large fan base in south India. So, altogether the movie is worth watching once in theaters. The movie is worth giving 7, but +1 for first attempt from freshers.