ka ka ka .. po

Easily my favorite peice of dialogue in the entire movie - 'Imsai Arasan 23vadu Pulikesi'. After seeing tired formulaic tamil movies, this was actually quite entertaining.

The movie is meant to be a historic comedy. Historic it most definitely is not - what with timelines of different emperors being mixed up and the British guys speaking contemporary Madras Tamil "Pulikesi, tension aavaathey pa". But it definitely is a comedy and a pretty good one at that. While there are very few scenes that make you laugh heartily, the movie does manage to sustain a continued smile and the occasional chuckle.

Vadivel seemed like an odd choice for a hero, but it makes sense once you see the movie. Who else could play both roles so well? Vadivel 1 is your typical comic V role: an arrogant but foolish and cowardly king, who walks with a swagger and fools around in the incredibly serious business of running his kingdom. V2 on the other hand is serious, wise and noble - charecteristics that aren't typical V, but he pulls off the role anyway splendidly. There is no doubt: the movie is so funny mainly because of Vadivel's brilliant acting.

The story is nothing brilliant though - just the usual twins separated at birth and re-united later thing. One grows up stupid and boastful while the other is wise and kind. One sucks up to the British and the other opposes them. One promotes disastrous policies for his profit, while the other believes that true profit is not at the expense of the people. By the end of the movie though, the bad twin meets the good one and becomes reformed. Yep, I gave away the ending, but really, could it have been anything else? To paraphrase the astrologer in the movie "If you have a screenplay with separated twins, they eventually have to meet."

There are even bits of social satire, but they've been careful to not let it dominate the tone of the movie. After all, when one seeks to escape reality (all the opiate for the masses thing should be about movies), one doesn't need a constant reminder of how crappy the reality is.

All in all, good entertainment and definitely worth watching once. Maybe even enough for you to say 'ka ka ka ..po' with a silly smile at random intervals for the next few days.