User reviews

Firstly, this review does not contain any spoilers whatsoever so read on. Frontier melodrama about Kerala's Thazavad manorial system which is based on matrimonial Kinship. Sreekrishna (Venu), the brother of the Madambipura House's leader, Yashoda, is extremely friendly with his servant Manikan (Mohanlal). Another servant, Appakala, envious of Manikan's favored status, is the film's official villain. The Madambipura House is locked in an ancestral rivalry with the equally large establishment run by Ganjimuda Gandhari, which usually finds expression in the bullock cart race at the annual Pongal festival.

Both Sreekrishna and Manikan fall in love with the beautiful itinerant theater actress Karuthumbi (Shobhana), causing Manikan to briefly fall out of favor with both Yashoda and the local law. The film's camera-work adopts the glossy style (diffusers and angled lighting calibrated to the exposure of high-speed color stock) made fashionable by Tamil cinematographer P.C.Sriram. Shot mostly at dawn and dusk, the camera-work creates a glittering fantasy world than in turn determines both plot and performances.

One of Priyadarshan's completely original movies, this was (not surprisingly) the biggest Malayalam hit in 1994. We see Mohanlal as Manikyam, who happen's to be the loyal Man Friday/friend/brother to Sreekrishnan (Nedumudi Venu). Both of them fall head over heels for village beauty Karthumbi (Shobana). Mohanlal does a great job, but this is Nedumudi's movie. His act as the jealous lover forms the centrefold of the movie; everything else revolves around it. Adding fuel to his seething envy is Appakkala (Sreenivasan, who is genuinely hilarious as always).

The cinematography by Santosh Sivan is breath-taking, no wonder he is lauded so much. The beautiful music is another aspect to be noted. The soundtrack went on to become the most sold soundtrack ever in Malayalam cinema, as of 1994-95.

The Hindi and Telugu remakes do grave injustice to the simplicity of the original. Refrain from watching them.

RATED 9/10 Language: Malayalam Source: Amazon Prime RECOMMENDED

I liked this one very much. The premise and characters are so much better and suited very well with the story. The comedy and sentiment are handled very well. Another movie to prove that originals are always better... after seeing this I started to dislike the first half of "Muthu" movie and started to like Mohanlal more... So original and so funny.... must watch.

This movie is 100% what we expect from Priyadarshan- Mohanlal combo. A fun film with romance, action, good songs and some evergreen situational comedy scenes in the backdrop of a love triangle.

Priyan has shown his craft right from the first shot. The title song takes us to the fictional Sreehalli village and we remain there till the movie ends. The cinematography is by K V Anand (in his debut), for which he won the National award. Some of the frames are untouchable even today with all the technological advancements. Production design by Sabu Cyril is also amazing. All songs were superhits and are still very popular.

Mohanlal is brilliant as always. Nedumudi Venu, Shobhana and Sreenivasan have also given stunning performances. Overall one of the best entertainers in Malayalam.

Thenmavin Kombath (1994) : Brief Review -

One of the finest Unoriginal Rom-Com with Love Triangle collapsed terribly in the Climax. I read some comments about this film on IMDb where people have called it a rare original film of Priyadarshan but it is not. It's highly inspired from old Bollywood film of 60s, 80s and even early 90s. Thenmavin Kombath is a typical love-triangle i have seen in many films. Srikrishnan and his best friend, Manickam falls in love with the same girl, a village performer, Srikrishnan turns out more intent on having her for himself. He spread rumours about his bad behaviour to defame him so that he can marry the girl. This was same love-triangle i saw in Bollywood films like 'Sangam', 'Ram-Avatar' and even in early 90s there was 'Saajan'. However, the subplot in Thenmavin Kombath differs from these films but simulates other Family dramas of 60s. Priyadarshan has written a good mix-up of 3-4 stories to make 1 story and it was enough enjoyable. It runs smoothly for like two hours and also gets beautifully emotional in the middle but then in the last 30 minutes it collapses terribly. That death scene of Sreekrishnan didn't make any sense, and people even believed it without any proofs. How? Not just those dumb people who had seen Manickam saving Sreekrishnan the same morning but even his Sister believed it too? And Sreekrishnan didn't even apologised at last. Utter nonsense that was. Well, the performances are fine. This wasn't an acting oriented film still Mohanlal, Nedu Mudi Venu, Sreenivasan and Shobhana have done nice. The screenplay is very engaging, music is good, dialogues are funny, cinematography looks okay, the rural humour is fantastic and Priyan's direction is satisfactory. The loopes in writing hurt the film otherwise it's a great family entertainer.

RATING - 6/10*

By - #samthebestest.

This movie has beautiful images, cinematography, scenery. The story could've been better instead too many curves and twist and drama. Great acting from all.

The film is centered around a village in which panchayat meetings are held to determine the fate of adulterers, cows and people wash in the river, tribal women wear special saris, and Pongal is celebrated with exciting bullock-cart races! It sounds like one of *those* village films, but it actually stays pretty lighthearted and silly until the intermission.