Thanks to DragunR2 for the shots!

This DVD is under the Surya Movies label and authored by Super Digital. It is progressive, single sided single layer. Colors are pretty well saturated. Sharpness is sometimes pretty good and other times a little soft. I am guessing that the underexposed shots were supposed to be day-for-night, but they don't look very good here. Brightness otherwise is excellent. Yellow spots appear at times. No subtitles, and no extras except for a text screen with synopsis. Too bad, as this was the first South Indian film to win the National Award IIRC, and would be of interest to many people. Chapter stops are for the songs only.

The sound is 2-channel mono and sounds decent.

is this movie good? and is the DVD widely available?? I did not find it in the dvdunlimited website.

i reckon it's an old and hard to find release?

The Mahal has it

Sucks

Thanks for the info

Pav

We dont sell Malayalam DVD since lot of Malayalam DVD get stuck in the final chapters. If you want this movie, please let me know. I will add them to our list.

Malayalam DVD price would be $15.99

Thanks
DVDUnlimitedOnline.com

The best bet is to buy from surya directly. Price is also 12.99

http://www.suryausa.com/

Is the Kamal Hassan film Kadal Meengal a remake of Chemmeen?

There similarities are that both talks about story of what happens in a fisherman's family, but they are totall different movies

Chemmen has two stories, of of a father, whos aim is to own a boat of his own. The other story talks about her girl who love someone but marry someone, but her husband came to know about her old love. In between some clashes etc. I didnt narrate the stories, because you probably wanted to see the movie.

Kadal Meengal is different. There are two kamal in the movie, one is a father who had an affair with a fishermen's girl and gave birth to another kamal and the story revolve arround battle between a rich father, poor son and local politics. I dont remember exact screen play, but they both are different. You may compare Kadal meengal with Indiran Chandran (bad father, good son) or some other kamal movies that he has done many times!

Chemmeen ("Shrimp") is based on a novel of the same name by Thakazhi Shivashankara Pillai, one of the greatest writers that the Malayalam language has seen. Thakazhi used a few myths prevalent among the fisherfolk (i.e. a fisherman's woman needs to be chaste for him to come back from the Sea, else the Sea claims him) to create a compelling tale of greed, unrequited love and pathos.

Babu Sait was ~22 years old when he decided he wanted to produce a world class movie in Malayalm. He contacted director Ramu Kariat, and they decided to filmize Chemmeen. No expense was spared for the project. Salil Chaudhary was brought in for the music, and his collaboration with the great lyricist Vayalar resulted in four superhit songs that are still heard in Kerala today (Manna Dey sings the plaintive "Manasa maine varu"). For the final shot, a huge dead shark was required, and it is said that Ramu Kariat waited for 6 months till a huge shark was beached.

The film went on to break box-office records and became the first Malayalam movie to win the President's gold medal (a precursor to the Best Film National Award).

Regards, Chaver.