Movie Review: Yogi - A Shameless remake of Tsotsi.

Yogi is definitely one of the good movies of the year. With a good screenplay, brilliant direction in few scenes, excellent performance, wonderful cinematography and stunning background score, Yogi is certainly worth watching.

Plot: The story is all about, how the life of a slum dweller (a ruthless human, played by Ameer) changes when a baby comes into his life. That's the one liner.

Yogi is more of Ameer's than Subramaniam Siva. On seeing the movie, the narrating style, the camera angle, one can easily say that the brain behind these is Ameer. There were some brilliant scenes which evoke emotion to the audience. Ameer and Madhumitha's performance were excellent and laud-worthy. Ameer shined well as an actor.

The biggest plus here is Yuvan Shankar Raja's background music. Brilliant music. His music conveyed the emotion so beautifully in some scenes. Background score of Yogi is sure to take Yuvan one step further. Kudos!

The biggest minus point is that the movie is almost a ''frame-by-frame' remake of South African movie "Tsotsi". Shamelessly copied. Though there were rumors that this movie is inspired from tsotsi, I was confident that Ameer would not take that route. But it was a complete shock to me that the whole movie is a rip off. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!The moment I saw the set up of Ameer's house in the movie, I could guess the amount of plagiarism. About 70 minutes of Yogi are lifted from Tsotsi. Why they couldn't copy more than 70 minutes? Because, Tsotsi runs only for 90+ minutes. LOL. It's a sin to copy Tsotsi without mentioning any credits. Tsotsi is a classic. The movie has to be experienced. Now that I have watched Yogi, I want to watch Tsotsi once again, to nullify the sin.

Trivia: The movie is gonna be screened in Dubai Film Festival where there will be juries from all over the world. Wondering how Ameer is gonna manage them. Is Ameer aware of this fact that the movie is copied? Or it is Sub Siva who the real culprit is? Let's see!

Regards,
Vinith.

Keyword: Yogi movie review, yogi yuvan ameer madhumitha, yogi copied from Tsotsi, yogi inspired, Yogi review, yogi background score.

What's this?

Here is my take on Paiya! (Dated 23rd November) and here is Indiaglitz's! (Dated 24th November)

Paiyaa Music Review
Paiyaa - Fantastic five
IndiaGlitz [Tuesday, November 24, 2009]

If someone say Yuvan Shankar Raja is not in his best form this year, it is obvious that they had not listened to songs from ‘Paiyaa’. The music composer has come out with a beautiful album in association with Lingusamy, which has five scintillating songs that make you fall in love as soon as you listen to them.

Lending ample support to Lingusamy’s claim that the Karthi-Tamannah starrer would be a racy and breezy entertainer, the songs by Yuvan set the perfect mood besides raising the levels of expectation on the movie.

1. Adada Mazhaida - Listen here
Singer: Rahul Nambiar, Saindhavi

Reminding you ‘Dhavani Potta Deepavali…’ from ‘Sandakozhi’ is ‘Adada Mazhaida…’ The song by Rahul Nambiar and Saindhavi sounds good and creates a peppy mood. Saindhavi's rendition towards the end is noteworthy. Yuvan’s folk template works well.

2. En Kadhal Solla - Listen here
Singer: Yuvan

It touches the soul straight away. Yuvan, as usual, excels in orchestration particularly in the first interlude. The humming part that comes mildly in the background in between is addictive. Yuvan has improved a lot in rendition, one can say by all means.

3. Poongatre Poongatre - Listen here
Singer: Benny Dayal

A catchy tune, ‘Poongatre Poongatre’ gives a mesmerizing feeling living true to the lyrics. Benny Dayal’s rendition adds value to the lyrics. The song has got all ingredients to strike a chord with younger generation.

4. Suthudhe Suthudhe - Listen here
Singer: Karthik, Sunitha Sarathy

The cream of the soundtrack is ‘Suthudhe Suthudue’. The song, which starts in an ordinary note, picks up soon and enthralls as it progresses. The ‘ra-ra-ra-radhe’ bit is awesome and is sure to be hummed by the audience in the coming days.

5. Thuli Thuli - Listen here
Singer: Haricharan, Tanvi

The song is so beautifully rendered by Haricharan and Tanvi. The music in the beginning and the ’sel sel avaludan sel’ part is too good, though they remind of me some catchy earlier songs. The tune and Na Muthukumar's lyrics complement each other.

Overall, 'Paiyaa' strikes an instant chord with all qualities to top the charts. In other words, Lingusamy has extracted the best from Yuvan.

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LOL. What you say guys??????

Regards,
Vinith

Vamanan, 'Following" the path of Plagiarism

Plagiarism and Indian cinema are like two sides of a coin. Plethora of movies have been made in Tamil, Hindi, which were directly lifted from Hollywood or Foreign movies. Some of them are Kadhal Konden (Said to have been a remake of a German Movie), Saroja (Copied from Judgment Night). Debutant Director I. Ahmed's Vamanan is not an exception. This affirms that the Indian Cinema is still following the path of plagiarism.

Some websites reported that the theme of Vamanan has been copied from a Hollywood flick "Following", directed by Christopher Nolan. Caught by Curiosity, I wanted to watch "Following". Watched it. I would rather call it "Lifted". Not just the theme, the scenes, the conversation between hero and villain (Rahman and Jai in Vamanan), the dialogues, the twist in the climax, everything has been ruthlessly lifted by I. Ahmed, a debutant director. What irks me is, Ahmed in an interview said that he has tried a new technique in screenplay which will be a trend setter and many movies would follow this trend. LOL. Ahmed, don't think you are smart. Tamil audience are not fools. You are being watched. Bag it in mind!

'Following-Vamanan' Connection:

Jeremy (Lead actor of Following) follows Alex to find inspiration for his novel.
Jai follows Rahman and contemplates his bodylanguage, style to find inspiration for his acting career.

The conversation between Jai and Rahman in a hotel (When Jai gets caught by Rahman) is exactly the same as the one between Jeremy and Alex in a Cafe when Jeremy gets caught by Alex for same reason.

Alex, a burglar, breaks into the apartments and surfs through the personal matters, diaries, of the residents. That's exactly what Rahman does in Vamanan. Worst part here is, in a scene Rahman takes a sip of Cool drinks in a house and shares the joy of having cool drinks in a house when the family people are not there. Even this dialogue has been lifted.

And last but not the least, the final twist in the climax.

So, I. Ahmed, what do you have to say? What about your next movie?

Aah... one more, Thanks Ahmed. Had you not done this, I would not have watched "Following". A must watch movie! Thanks once again!

Share your thoughts,

Regards,
Vinith...

Tags: Vamanan lifted, Vamanan inspired, Vaamanan movie copied from following, I. Ahmed Following movie, Christopher Nolan.

GVP - Yuvan Coincidence!!!

Another interesting coincidence.

I recently got the OST (not exactly OST. But good collection of BGM) of the movie Manmadhan, music by Yuvan. This collection includes main theme with 13 other BGM music and bit songs. The theme music (Violin orchestration) of the movie Kreedom by young composer GV Prakash, strongly resembles one of the BGM pieces of Manmadhan.

The inspired piece is very small in terms of duration but the similitude is pretty high. Check out this. I really don’t know if this is an intentional act of GVP or again an accidental one.

As a layman, my knowledge about how a Symphony is composed is, first the composer writes musical notes for the symphony and then composes the music with the written notes. (Please correct me if I am wrong). So this piece seems to be an accidental one. Of course, no composer would sit and copy/inspire the music that comes merely for 3 seconds.

Listen to those pieces!

Manmadhan Theme,



Kridom Theme,

This is just a coincidence I guess. What do you think about this?

Regards,
Vinith

Yuvan Disappoints Again?????

It’s a well known factor that Yuvan Shankar Raja has established himself as one of the most successful music directors in Tamil. His way of orchestrating the songs is pretty innovative which is widely accepted by critics. It’s also said that he is the current Youth Icon in TFM.

Yuvan’s greatest strength is his BGM score. When it comes to background score, Yuvan is always ahead of other composers (am not referring IR or ARR here :)). But it is sad to know that he often tries his hands in any foreign album or in his dad’s compositions for his BGM.

Just before few months I came to know that the 7G BGM is certainly inspired from Michel Nyman’s keyboard (which you can find here). Few weeks back it was said that he has used “Poove poochudava” music in Yaradi Nee Mohini movie. Now one more here…

Thanks to Hitherto who found this out and commented in Background score blog.

The much talked about background music of Katradhu Tamil seems to have been inspired from his dad’s song “Manadhile oru pattu” from Dhayam Onnu movie. In KT movie, this music is played when childhood Prabha takes Anandhi to a hill to show tiger. When I watched this movie, this piece of music literally brought tears in my eyes. Such a haunting instrumental piece it is. So I felt really bad when I heard that this is an inspired one. But, this can also be an accidental one. Of course, coincidences are very common in music.

Listen to “Manadhile Oru pattu” interlude.




Listen to “Tamil MA” music,



To download,

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/5/17/1915834/Manadhile%20Oru%20Paattu.mp3
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/5/17/1915834/Tamil%20MA.mp3

I’ll be very happy if this is an accidental one. But if it was intentional, hmmm…

Is this a copied one? What do you feel about this? Please drop in your comments and suggestions.