Imsai Arasan 23rd Pulikesi

After a long long time, a historical film is being made in Tamil. Even for that the producer & the director should be appreciated - particularly for their courage & confidence. This is an out & out Vadivel film. Except the first 2-3 scenes, Vadivel appears in each and every shot of the film. Such scenarios happen only in case of big stars like Rajni or Kamal. He just gave his best to take this film to a huge success.

The story is not a great one - a wee bit similar to Utthama Putthiran (but only a wee bit). This fictitious story is based in the later part of the 18th century where a queen of a small kingdom gives birth to twins after 22 unborn babies. Her wily brother, with a wish to rule that kingdom wanted only child to be born and so leaves one of the babies into a river. The other child was named 23rd Pulikesi and he was brought up into a coward king by his uncle. Though he was called the king, it was his uncle who ruled the kingdom supporting the Britishers. Meanwhile, the boy
Ugraputthiran who was left in the river grew up as a brave & intelligent fellow and went on to lead a team of rebels.

At one instance, when the uncle was on a friendly trip to Chennai to meet some Britishers, Ugraputthiran got a chance to replace himself as his brother. He with the help of the Army-chief revived the entire kingdom and gave the people an excellent rule. He revoked all the idiotic practices inaugurated by his brother and created awareness amongst the people. He also opposed the Britishers and banned them & their products from his kingdom. When his uncle came back and opposed him, both the brothers got united and ousted him. Finally, Pulikesi took charge of the kingdom and promised good independent rule to the nation.

As said earlier, Vadivel is everything for this film. It was a remarkable performance from him. Right from his dialogue delivery to his body-language, everything was exemplary. He really did well to distinguish between both his roles. Looks like, he has taken a cue from MGR's acting for his role of Ugraputthiran. In most of those romantic scenes, his dialogue delivery imitates MGR a lot. But Pulikesi was one of his masterpieces. He was at his hilarious best through-out the film and he was well-aided by Ilavarasu. Both of them made a wonderful pair making all laugh every now and then.

It was a cakewalk performance for Nasser and he did his part well. There are quite a lot of known faces in the film but Vadivel sidelines them all. Though there were two heroines one each for each son, none of them had any chance to perform or excel. Music by Sabesh-Murali was nothing great. They were just a mixture of old songs - well disguised. May be, some of them might even make you murmur but you would better recite the dialogues than the songs.

I still cannot consider this as a comedy film at all. Though it is humourous it contains a lot of messages - both for the rulers and for the ruled. It is quite vivid that this film is being taken with a purpose. The director has tried to give a message with the comedy. Particularly, I would like to mention a scene wherein Pulikesi creates a playground where people can come and clash for their caste. Humourously, the director has just ridiculed the caste-clashes and other related clashes. Those who indulge in such things should feel ashamed after seeing that scene. If at all, if they have anything called sense, they should stop indulging in such activities on seeing this scene.

Similarly, there are quite a lot of scenes through-out the film. They have also mocked cola-culture, cricket-craze, some idiotic government decisions etc. Only that the director has missed out in logic in certain areas - but that is forgivable. Also in one of the scenes, Pulikesi would mention the name of Napoleon as a hero but Napoleon wouldn't have been famous at that time. However Vadivel mocked that too by mentioning "Brave heart - Mel Gibson" in one of the later scenes.

As such it is really very very encouraging to see new directors like Simbudevan coming up with such films with messages. If more and more directors come up with such films, the Tamil film industry can really reach greater heights in future. Also it might slightly assist in creating some kind of awareness amongst people.