Kochadaiiyaan

Rajnikanth is touted to be able to do it all- count to infinity, can find corners in circles, made the dinosaurs extinct, has played Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun and won etc. But one thing he clearly cannot do is to ensure that every film of his entertains. Kochadaiiyaan may boast of all that motion capture technology, but put side by side Hollywood exploits such as Tin Tin, it comes off as an amateurish, cartoonish effort.

The story is a standard revenge drama- in the vein of Dharam Veer, and a million Chinese martial art epics. Kochadaiiyaan is a legendary warrior in the kingdom of Kottaipatinam. He is a man of ethics, but his enemies are not. His military prowess and burgeoning popularity attracts the jealousy of the king, Rishikogadan (Nasser). In a skirmish with the rival kingdom of Kalingpuri, Kochadaiiyaan loses his army as he chooses to ensure they live rather than be massacred. The king of Kottaipatinam uses this as a reason to eradicate someone from who he feels threatened.

Kochadaiiyaan's son, Rana takes up his father's unfinished mission. He goes to Kalingpuri, trains there and becomes the army general. He then tricks the king of Kalingpuri- Mahendra Raj (Jackie Shroff), to let him make an army out of the people of Kottaipatnam who he had earlier enslaved, and then gets them home on the pretex of war. There is a double love story lined up post this featuring an "enhanced" Deepika, while Rishikogadan and Mahendra Raj must meet their bloody end.

Rajnikanth is virtually in every frame of the film, and as usual he oozes style and confidence. While the movie is decently paced, every scene is either a song or a fight sequence. The result of the motion capture technology is abysmal. The reason for doing motion capture is to impart real feel to animated characters. In Kochadaiiyaan, the effect is opposite- there is no real emotion in the facial shots of the characters. Had it been a live action film, it might have looked good. But today's audience used to Avatar and its ilk, this mediocre effort simply does not cut the cake. Even Pogo features better animation!

This expensive experiment to immortalize Rajnikanth might be good enough for die hard fans, but still cannot make up for its complete lack of connect, and its technical shortcomings. The last scene indicated a sequel- hope that is done better. 5/10

"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.

Me having at least minimum knowledge about how tough & challenging it is to make a film like this one, I can surely call it an 'EPIC', proudly! As I borrow the words of Amitabh Bachchan , "100 years of Indain cinema will now be called as 'After Kochadaiyaan' and 'Before Kochadaiyaan'" are so really true. Yes, this movie really deserves a great applause, ignore about how or what the story is but the attempt and hard work that went into the making of this film deserves an applause. People who do not have any knowledge about 'Motion Capture' should watch this film in the way it is shown and shouldn't call it a cartoon or something. The only flaw about the film is that there are some disconnected scenes in both the halves and maybe that is due to editing errors. Apart form that, the Cinematography , Sound , VFX and the other tech departments did their best.Super Star Rajnikanth was at his best and his hard core fans will enjoy the 'Shiva Thandav' part. The other actors did justice to their characters. The biggest asset is the Music and BGM by A.R. Rahman which doesn't bore you at any point in the film. The narrative was at good pace.There weren't many 3D shots, just few here and there in action sequences. Go and watch the film with your family, you'll surely enjoy it.

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.