Hari K

Directed by P S Veerappa: The movie is well thought-out. The range of human emotions explored from jealousy, guilt, anger at guilt, anger at inability to do anything about guilt, dejection through guilt and final giving up on all things human. All these instigated by a small but stark incident during the childhood of Thiyagarajan: The song Satti suttadhada! I feel encapsulates the mood of the movie.

Sivakumar (Gaja) has a wig made.out of Kevlar. World's first. A man gets killed after being run over by an empty bullock cart. World's first. Sarita plays the mobile vegetable seller.with a basket. She also manages to get the petromax light from Gounds in this movie. World's first. This movie was later remade as Iraivi. This is being narrated from the woman's pov. Very interesting, to say the least. Must be rewatched every decade to relate to shifting scenarios.

One-track movie that has left quite a lot unexplored. There has been criticism that there have not been very many women oriented roles in Kollywood. This movie and the many more it inspired have created an entire body of women-centric work. This seminal work is still spawning mega serials... 40 years later. This movie still has its challenges. When the snake takes a human form, why does the human have cat eye colour? Barring this glaring scientific inconsistency the rest of the movie can be explained satisfactorily. I feel Kamal lost a trick here by not infusing a ballet flavour to his snake dance. It is obvious he had not tried too much for this movie in terms of costumes. His handlebar remained from all his previous movies. SriPriya is the star of this movie and after AatuKaaraAlamelu has delivered a strong female centric performance. Emulations have never been even half as impressive. The movie deserves a thumbs up mainly because it served as an inflex point for women actors to be taken as serious earners.

One more movie with the hero playing a tea master. Little did he know cultural significance of such a role. This movie is prescient in the sense that the tea shop owner also has an agenda against black money, confiscating from a local don and giving it to the poor. The movie ends prematurely with the tea shop owner just beginning to exhibit political ambitions. Waiting for Ayudha Poojai 2 - Teashop wohi banayenge.