Aayirathil Oruvan

The movie which created high expectations for 2 years reaches silver screen with a bang! hats off to Selva and his crew who made this happen.

Plot: During 12th century,Cholas were defeated by the Pandians,causing the Chola king and his people to remain hidden with the enemy god's idol..Pandians are still in search of them..presently,the casts Karthi,Reema,Andrea go pass 7 traps set by Chola to reach the hidden Chozan world...the rest of the story reveals Reema's mystery and Karthi's destiny.

All credit goes to Selva who has made a successful magnum opus.The important aspect of the movie is its raw and sensible screenplay.

The cast of the movie are definite plus..Karthi has completely dominated the first half of the movie wit hilarious comedies,and innocent acting..Brave attempt of Reema in second half is sure for credit,Andrea plays a soft and sizzling role in the movie..Parthiban as the Chozan king is above grounds,his performance in this movie surely deserves an award....

Music is the soul heart of the movie scored by G.V.Prakash ..songs are tremendous incl Oh Eesa,Un Mela Aasadhan and Thai Thindra..the two instrumentals, King arrives and Celebration of life are best part of the movie holding audience nerves...

Cinematography and art direction adds beautiful ingredients to the movie..graphics could have been made still more perfectly..

Finally, Selvaraghavan has clean shaved all the routine commercial flicks and has given a new genre for Tamil cinema..the story of the movie speaks for itself...the scene of Nataraja shadow is purely brilliancy in world cinema..the characterization of the Chozan king is amazing..the research work of the director is excelled in all departments like music and mythology of Cholas..

the negative aspects are the character of the army officer and rape scenes in final minutes..

To conclude AO is the movie that carries Tamil history in world class style...new entry for cult movie.

(Desperately waiting for AO2)

Rating:10/10

This is the best Tamil movie I have ever seen!It is surely one of a kind.If you are an ardent movie fan,this is a MUST WATCH MOVIE. Hats off to Selvaragavan!India has got her own Christopher Nolan.

The first half makes you wonder if you are actually watching a tamil movie or not.My friends warned me that the second half was a bit confusing.But you have my word,the second half is even better than the first.The biggest plus is that the movie has an awesome script and a very good story.

But anyway it ain't a Hollywood movie with budget in billions.So there may be some technical flaws in animation,Graphics and the like.But this is compensated by the mind blowing music by G.V.Prakash.He is another plus to this movie.

To conclude Selvaragavan & Team have done a great job in taking Tamil Cinema to new standards.Am eagerly waiting for the sequel to this movie.

CHOLAN PAYANAM THODARATTUM!!

"Aayirathil Oruvan is very good Adventure movie i never ever seen before in Tamil movie. Hats off to Selvaraghavan" by prakash. B W some :With Aayirathil Oruvan, Selvaraghavan has inadvertently opened the Pandora box of a new genre as yet unknown to Tamil movies – Zombies. It is the case of Pirates of the Caribbean meets Dawn of the Death where the ancient Cholas, albeit with whatsoever no connection to the real Cholas as the disclaimer maintains, are reduced to dark-as-charcoal skinned tribesmen living in an unknown island in Vietnam, who are ready to gorge at raw flesh at the mere sight of it since they are starved.

So the dark-skinned subjects largely set the tone of the movie and the darkness remains dominant throughout. There is blood and gore, but of a different kind: not the one that makes you squirm, but something that makes you gawk at.

Thousands of years ago, when the Cholas were ousted from their homeland by the Pandias, their throne Prince was sent into exile to a secret location by the last Chola King. The Prince also carried with him a priceless statue of the Pandias. No efforts were fruitful at tracing the location and archeologists attempting the same simply disappear without a trace.

Aayirathil Oruvan

Andrea's dad and archaeologist Prathap Pothen vanishes into thin air in his attempt to unravel the mystery. In comes the archaeologist-cum-gun-wielding-designer-sunglasses-sporting ultra modern chick Reema, employed by the Indian government to trace Pothen. Andrea, his daughter, obviously joins in and they employ Karthi and a gang of burly men as helps. Karthi looks as if he's stepped out of his Paruthiveeran sets to join Reema and Andrea in their quest.

Their expedition unfurls nasty surprises after surprises - body-painted weirdos with strange weapons, quicksand, snakes. Lest we forget, there is also a cat fight between Reema and Andrea on the topic 'Karthi'. They finally reach the zombie land where Parthiban is the ruler whose raw-flesh-eating subjects take them into custody. Reema reveals her real self and exposes the self-centric purpose of her quest.

Karthi has very little to spare for Aayirathil Oruvan. He plays the rustic help, who instantly falls for Reema and Andrea, who cracks witty one-liners much to our delight in the otherwise serious state of affairs. Being his forte, it comes much easier for him without even having to try.

Despite having to mouth profound verses in ancient Tamil, Reema manages to only mime them with improper synchronization and it makes her appear as if she's in a Chinese movie. Andrea is multi-talented, but acting, sadly, is not one of those. But her meager dialogues in Madras Tamil are bang on otherwise.

G V Prakash's music stands out in the 'Ommele Aasathaan' song and a word about the background score: it's a battle between the background score and the blood thirsty human screeches. We would've loved to write about Eerum Ali's costume designing if only Reema and Andrea were not strutting around in just one pair of satin-shirt-shorts-overalls and sleeveless top and baggies respectively. Karthi leaves no scope for Eerum squarely.

Selva's frenziedly unleashed creativity makes you hallucinate towards the end of the movie and delirium sets in soon. It's not enough that a solid disclaimer is in place, a little bit of research about the subject would've helped things in the process. The underdeveloped script lacks everything - starting from strong plot twists to captive locations to graphics to credibility, above all.

Aayirathil Oruvan also ends on a very scary end note: about the journey of the Chola prince continuing as Karthi takes up the mantle

I review this movie so late because, I really didn't like it when I watched it for the first time.The second time I saw it,I felt that this movie has to be reviewed here.Its true that there were huge expectations and the movie was a bit disappointment.I feel the same even now.But there are more good things to talk about than the cons.

My first acknowledgment to the story writer(Selva).This is really a unique movie, so original in its script and content.I have never seen a fictional Indian movie so original and so thoroughly researched,as it deals with ancient Tamil culture.I couldn't believe that such an idea has splashed up for Tamil movie makers.The way he takes us to ancient Tamil culture and links it up fictionally to present culture is really breath taking.I bet that the story as a whole is just so fresh and new to Tamil or even Indian cinema.Kudos to you Selva.

My second acknowledgment to the director(Selva).Except for the graphics,the way the director has extracted work from all the departments is breath-taking(since this genre is so new to Tamil).Music,art,action,photography,editing,actors everything fits in well with the script and kudos to the crew for such an effort.

Now comes the screenplay(Also Selva!!!).I feel that this is where the movie is a big let down.The first half was really terrific and was in going with correct pace.The second part acted as the spoiler.There were tooooo many things to be shown and explained,so the director had to just rush with the script,which made the viewer baffled of what was happening around.

Having penned such a wonderful script, the movie could have been divided into two or more parts.Say, the first part can deal with the adventurous trip to the ancient Chola Kingdom.The second part could show what happens there, all the twists and turns and the third part could show what happens at the end.

This is where I feel that Tamil movies are a notch well behind the films from other parts of the world.Taking risk and being bold enough to split the movie into parts.So that everything could be explained in detail and in the manner the director wanted,especially in such scripts.

Having said this, I still feel that if the movie is watched once again,it will surely be loved.

This Movie was released during a Pongal. Had to over power crowd to get the tickets and was dumb struck by visuals, screenplay and non stereotypical variety. Not only that, it pushed me to learn more about these two rival kingdoms. But very unfortunate that many don't know their own history and viewers expect the director to "TELL everything instead of SHOW" The end result- movie which is supposed to be celebrated as the movie of the decade ended up as an average Venture. Feel sorry for the poor taste of the viewers at that time for this movie being ended up as Glorious Flops and celebrated now. But Its too Late.