Aayirathil Oruvan - Movie Review

   After a pretty long hiatus, I am back with yet another movie review. This time it is the Selvaraghavan movie Aayirathil Oruvan. Remember your history books Cholas & Pandyas. If you don't, then this movie will definitely remind you of them as the movie is based on them. This movie is definitely a new genre in tamil movies and something that no one has attempted before. You also need to have a mindset and a penchant for history, especially south indian history.
   The move is defnitely not the greatest movie or even the best movie. There are a few illogical scenes and I really wish that they would have explained a few things more.
From the limited knowledge I have I am listing out what is best portrayed here are from history
1) A king who is ruling a waste land and his mind set. Parthiban is great as such a king.
2) A country which has fallen from its greatness
3) The battle techniques of the Cholas
4) The liberal mindset of the people (Paganism) 
5) The pedastal position the eunuchs had in Indian soceity
6) True loyalty, respect for a king in Indian history before the Moghuls
7) The resourcefulness, ingenuity and knowldge of the Indians in fields such as in medicine to cure most diseases
8) Get an idea of the extent to which the Britishers destroyed our education, culture, beliefs, knowledge in order to rule. This provides a way for us to identify ourselves.
9) The tamizh from the time of the Cholas

The things that have not been portrayed well from history are
1) I don't think we had barbarianism in our culture to have acts of gladiators
2) Some of the rituals, especially the dances, considering that art and culture flourished during times of the Cholas
3) Why were the Cholas shown so dark? Is it to show them as Dravidians. Then they are falling to the lie about the Aryan invasion theory
4) The architecture of one of the temples in the ruins that look more like that from North Indian Rajputs/Marathas etc rather than from the Cholas.
   There are a few more but my limited knowledge of history limits me from listing them.

Regarding the movie, this is definitely not a historical movie but is deeply tied to history even though it is fiction. The people have acted well and Reema Sen has got a very strong role where she gets to battle and she does a fairly decent job but there is absolutely no synchronization of the tamizh she speaks as usual. Karthi is great as the low class labourer (gets into the character itself). Andrea has got a good role too, but the best is Parthiban (no sarcasm, but he did not have to dance). Some scenes are illogical like how did an Indian army battalion get to Vietnam so easily, how can an iphone work as a satellite phone, where did the communication specialist go. Most of us in the theatre did not understand a lot of the tamizh as it was the thamizh from ancient Cholas/Pandyas period. That is an admirable effort. There was a lot of blood and violence but I guess it was needed as part of the movie. There has been a lot of research gone into making this movie and Selvaraghavan has brought his touch by displaying the human emotions well in the characters. But the characters of Reema Sen and Andrea have been made to be so cold and I think this was something he got inspired by Hollywood movies, though you could relate to why Reema Sen is like that.

It is a long movie, but I liked it a lot and now I am more enthused to actually catch up on my history (not the one the Britishers taught us, but the actual one) . I am not sure if you would like it, but still I would encourage you to see the movie.