Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu- Tamil Cinema continues its good form
After a string of good films like Anjathey, Subramaniapuram, Poo etc in 2008, Tamil cinema continues its good run in 2009. With Bala’s Naan Kadavul (read the article- http://passionforcinema.com/naan-kadavul-bala-is-back-in-style/ ) and now director Susindhran’s impressive debut movie- Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu, 2009 looks quite promising indeed. Of late sport’s themed movies have been coming out in plenty especially in the area of cricket. After Iqbal,Chak De India, Chennai -28 ( some of the better sport’s themed movies of late) comes one more in that series- Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu ( VKK here after).Its a co-incidence that the day VKK released, another sport’s theme movie –Victory also released 
The movie has some shades similar to Chak De India. First of all this is a story of an underdog team & is not individual specific. Also while CDI spoke about hockey, VKK goes even different & talks about Kabadi, a sport not very mainstream, yet deeply routed in our psyche. The movie’s cast primarily consists of debutants except the heroine- Saranya Mohan & the coach- Kishore. The story set in a village near Pazhani is about Mari (Vishnu) a boy who is very interested in Kabadi. After the death of his father he is forced to work in the zamindar’s fields. The boy grows up & is now a fringe player in the Kabadi team of the village. All the players are from different backgrounds & the team has disrepute of losing most of the games.
Once after losing a game, the team decides to call a nearby village team (a soft team) for their annual village festival so that they can win & redeem their pride in front of their villagers. Also during this village festival comes a girl from Madurai to the village (Saranya Mohan).Mari and the girl fall in love without speaking much. When the game is about to begin, the Vennila ( home team) is dismayed to find that the other team has brought in outside players to play, thus making it tough to win. Mari plays the game by default & the game ends in confusion. At the same time the girl goes back to Madurai after the festival is over after promising Mari she will back for the next festival.
Now the team is ridiculed by the whole village and that is when one of the team members finds out that there is a state level tournament happening in Madurai. The team decides to go to Madurai & try their luck. They know this may be their last opportunity to redeem their pride. A state level player cum coach ( Kishore) who happens to be there helps the team to play. What happens from thereon is what the 2nd half of the movie is mainly all about. Camera work by Laxman and music by Selvaganesh help the movie quite well. Susindhran’s effort at character building helps tremendously. While Vishnu & Saranya do their roles well, Kishore and the rest of the team look quite convincing. The semi rural milieu of T.N has been captured very well. For producer K.Anand Chakravarthy, the movie is a winner all the way.
All said and done my only question to Susindhiran is why did you have to end the movie like this? Yes the ending is truly shocking, but was this necessary? Or was this with an eye to win the audience sentiment? But overall the movie works in a big way. Go for the movie, you won’t be disappointed.
Tags: Laxman, Saranya Mohan, Selvaganesh, Susindhran
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I’m so behind in my Tamil cinema, Sethu thambi.
I’ll look out for it :-)
I predict that after having swept the Oscars there will be a period of Slumdog bashing and lots of people are going to question many of the awards. Yesterday, for instance, there were many respected TV stations that said that Rehman had written far better scores that should have deserved the prize. But simple questions like were these films nominated were brushed aside? I personally found the film charming but a bit over the top but was thrilled at the space and accolades it received. It will break some glass ceiling but I think Indians need to ponder about the genre mainstream Bollywood belongs to which just doesn’t find a place in world cinema and the genre is melodrama with musicals thrown in. The other thing is the length. Our films are just too long and loud for an international audince. But ‘Jai Ho’ Danny Boyle – I think he will have made it easier to dream and even dismiss the ‘oscar dream’ for us. What gave me my moment of joy was the amazing aplomb of the kids on the red carpet. They were so comfortable in their own skins that it was an object lesson on how to be an ambassador in one’s own country.
@sethu – there is more in the movie than that meets the eye – The movie is – for me a perfect example of chaos theory and the screenplay is awesome to the effect. The ending is not as bad as it feels the first time you watch it. In fact the ending makes us question a lot of things about the boy, his childhood, his village and his friends – for they never knew him fully till the climax. It is no twist in the tale – yet was effective for me. I need to write a lengthy post on this impressive movie.
Steve- do watch it, you’ll love it.Kahan ho aajkal?koi khabar hi nahin?
Jai- I do agree with your point to a large extent.In fact one of the best things about the movie is the detailing done by the director- remarkable
I will definitely try to catch this one sethu and jaiganesh. What does the title mean (My tamil isn’ great) by the way?
Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu literally translated means
White moon kabadi team.Consider it as vennila kabadi team
I just watched this movie, this week. found it entertaining but thought the climax was totally out of place. Why do you have to end a movie that way. The climax did not work for me. And felt they could have had lesser number of songs. And the rise from underdogs to a true winner happens too quickly in the course of last 25 minutes of the movie. they could have spent more screen time on the Kabbadi sequence rather than the love trakc, atleast they could have balanced it equally. All said and done the movie is definetly one of the better movies of tamil cinema.
Balaji- Even I found the climax abrupt.As for the romance part I felt it was still within reasonable limits.In a typical movie they would have shown Saranya cheering the team during the finals in Madurai & all that crap- nothing of that sort happens here.So that way this is certainly hatke
tamizh movies (except for a few like shivaji – the boss and dasavatharam) do not get a simultaneous release in pune, so i hv to depend heavily on the dvds, and if luck permits, at times i go to chennai on my official visit, and try to catch up a few there.
the write-up has whetted the apetite. hvto plan a visit to chennai soon…
Jha- do make a trip to Chennai soon & watch it- you wont regret it.On the other hand I would suggest you not to depend too much on DVD’s.Why dont you instead try to visit Mumbai maybe during the weekends?Most of the tamizh movies do release in Mumbai.I do keep updating my bro whenever a good movie releases there.If you want I can let you also know the same
@sethu : the romance part was done reasonably well no doubts on that, but i felt the kabbadi track should have given more weightage..a team which has been loosing all these years..suddenly transforms to a great winning team…if at all they had shown their rising as a gradual curve..and shown some interesting moments involving the match it would have been more enjoyable..
Sethu: Haven’t been able to watch it..With LBC, Dev D, Naan Kadavul, Billu, Delhi 6 and Valkyrie, it is already 6 movies in 24 days!! Will catch it soon. But post is very good. Making me curious to know about the ending. :-)
sethu: yaar, sundays r already booked for hindi / english movies. unfortunately, i work in a “six-full-day” environment. but yes, if a worthy movie like this one releases, i can always make it to mumbai for the weekends. in fact i wud b xtremely grateful if u cud put me also in ur “intimation” list, along with ur bro.
btw, whn r u coming over to pune? waiting for u. beer getting cold in my fridge……
Anand- I understand your predicament buddy.I saw delhi-6 on friday night,valkyrie on saturday afternoon & VKK on sunday afternoon
@ Jha- Problem samaj gaya.Dont worry I’ll add you to my “intimation” list along with my bro.Whenever something good comes along I’ll let you know.Dont worry it wont be every week
Would be coming to Pune very soon,my wife is there right now.So need to come down & bring her back with me.Till then let the beer continue to chill
Good article as usual sethu.
Hope it shows at aurora.
The biggest coup the director has done is to present this as a ’sports movie’. It reminds me of the ‘Natural’ where Robert Redford’s baseball skills are only incidental – there are more deeper stories buried in it. Similarly this movie has a wonderful human story behind it. The director has cleverly used the cloak of Sports movie to tell so many issues and that is the reason the ending is justified. However seen as merely a ‘feel good’ sports movie the ending is out of place.
Really craving to see this one, loved Chennai 60008 which was in the same league, will these run in hyd anytime…..DAMN IT!! Cool…I know the answer;
Good review Sethumadhavan Sir
Sridhar- Thanks.Good that you know the answer to your question- it wont work in Hyd.When
Chennai-28 which was about cricket & Saroja which had known faces to the telugu audience didnt do well in Hyd, VKK – no ways
Jai- Agree wholeheartedly to your point,but then did Susindhiran have what you’ve mentioned in mind?Dunno about that, gotta find out !!!
Cinemausher- thanks, do check out Aurora now.It might be going on now, or coming soon if my hunch is right
Yaar Sethu, main yahan hi hoon, par kuch timing ka lafda ho geya tha.
Have actually ended up missing loadsa movies too :-(
‘Naan Kadavul’ is the one i’d LOVE TO WATCH, par idhar lagi nahin.
I know the feedback hasn’t been great, but Bala’s films are fascinating.
Dvd par yeh bhi aur woh bhi dekhni padegi.
Steve- if you ask me I’d say Naan kadavul is worth a watch for its content & presentation.Do check out my article on it.
Sethu!
It’s just been announced ke ‘Naan Kadavul’ WILL be played here for one day only, providing the distrubitor turns up!
Fingers crossed, i’ll catch it! :-)