May be this is the same group who ordered 10 copies of CM audio CD and 10 copies of Rajinikanth Hits DVD!!! Anyway thanks to Rajini for my business.

I saw CM with little less expectation since hte review by IG is not really great and to my surprise I liked the movie. This movie is the complete opposite of MX. First let me give some -ves and +ves

+ves

Story
Jyothika acting in the last 15 minutes
Songs and picturization of the songs
B or C center comedy by Vadivelu
Some of the review says rajini look old. HE IS NOT. He is looking young definitely. Only trouble was his lips (plastic surgery or something and on top of that purple color lipstick)

-ves
No role for Rajini - this is a big -ve for Rajini movie. Waste of characters like Nazar, his daughter in the movie, Vijayakumar, nayanthara, prabu and above all the "oomaiyyan" who just simles all thru the movie and end up fighting with rajini, just for the heck of it! Net Net, the story prevails through out the movie, but none of the characters are...

Verdict:

For Rajini Fans : Okay movie (cant give up thalaivar man!)
For Kamal Fans: When Kamalji is teaching kids with "Paigala nambathe" kind of songs, why the hell Rajini comes up with this scary thing, so kids can fear? Rajini is crazy. Even baba is better than this crap.
For unbiased audiance: Very Good

Interestingly even MX has the same verdict (from me ), both MX and CM are movie for the general audance and not for their fans.

Now comparision

MX - No big story
CM - Good story

MX - A center comedy
CM - C center (double meaning) comedy

MX - Characters are used effectively
CM - Except Jyothika, every one else (including Rajini) is totally wasted

MX - Songs are good in CD but no songs in movies
CM - Picturization of songs are very good

MX - BGM is not great. IR could have done little more
CM - BGM is very good

MX - Good Direction
CM - Good Direction

MX - Keep you engaged more in second half than first half
CM - First half is better than second half. The minute the priest and other fictional things are introduced, ppl remembered Baba

MX - Short climax
CM - Climax is the movie

MX - is not for Kamal fans
CM - is not for Rajini fans

MX - is good for general audiance
CM - is good for Rajini audiance

MX - A center - Verygood
B Center - Good
C center - okay

CM - A center - Okay
B Center - Good
C center - Verygood

Got to see Chandramukhi by chance. Went to see Mughal-E-Azam but the show was replaced with Chandermukhi.
There were no subtitles, and there was plenty of dialog driven laughter that I couldn't enjoy.
Other than that or even despite that, I enjoyed the film thoroughly. Full Paisa Vasool and more. Excellent projection, Excellent thundering and directional DTS audio, plenty of colorful songs, interesting storyline and excellent climax like SriDevi's NAGINA.

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As always, South Indian Films always get the DTS print for a DTS theatre (bravo), but hindi films never do (shame) in North America.

http://sify.com/movies/tamil/fullstory.php?id=13722320

Rajni-The highest paid Indian actor?
By Moviebuzz
Wednesday, 20 April , 2005, 12:43


Chandramukhi has made its hero Rajnikanth the highest paid actor in India! He is reported to have received 50 percent of the gross sale from the film, roughly about 15 Crore ($3 Million)!

Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi is rumoured to be getting Rs 10 Crore as remuneration while the ‘numero uno’ of Bollywood Sharukh Khan demands and gets Rs 5 Crore for a film.

Economists and trade analysts are throwing up their hand and asking the valid question – How is it possible for an actor to get so much money from Tamil film market which is so limited? The answer is there for everyone to see.

Rajnikanth’s citadel in Tamilnadu is the NSC (North Arcot, South Arcot, Chengalpetu)- Chennai city area comprising Chennai city to Ulundurpet in South and Tirupathur in South West. This area is one-fourth the size of Mumbai territory for Bollywood films in comparison.

Sharukh Khan’s Main Hoon Na was sold for Mumbai territory for a record Rs 3.5 Crore to Ashta Vinayak films while Rajnikanth’s Chandramukhi got nearly Rs 6 Crore as Minimum Guarantee (MG) from theatres in NSC, city area alone!

In Bollywood, there is no hero worship like in Tamilnadu. A new release of Rajnikanth in Tamilnadu for the ordinary people is like an assembly election for viewers that happen once in a blue moon. People go to the theatres religiously to watch his films just like casting votes and affirming their faith in the superstar.

Why is Baba considered such a bad movie?

I actually kinda liked it. I've seen worser movies. The mysticism stuff was kinda cool. I dont understand rajni fans.

Can you explain what exactly is this A, B and C centers?

In tamil nadu A center is Chennai and Coimbatore and some part of Trichy (if you dig deeper, you will see good colleges in these places).

B center is rest of the major towns like Erode, Salem, Madhurai, most of Trichy, Tanjoor, Kumbakonam and some part of South Arcot and North Arcot district.

C center is rest of the towns and "ettu patti pathinettu gramam"

If a movie runs well in Chennai, Coimbatore (kamal), Erode (rajini and rajini) and Madhurai (rajini-vijayakanth- and all movies that talk about "devar" koottam) district is a box office hit. This is the definition based on 90s. Now a days its all different.

A Center - Vikram, Surya, Maddy (but vijay movie runs in chennai cuz he owns few theatres)
B Center - Vijay
C Center - Vijay

Rest of the actors has to depend on luck/movie/story/music etc.

In terms of directors

shankar - ABC
manirathnam - A and little B
balachandar - ABc
bhagyaraj - ABC
KS ravikumar - BC

The most important thing is to get the B center - which is why Rajini and Kamal movies have high demand.

BTW CM is sold to SunTV for close to 6 Cr
MX is sold to Jaya TV for 2 Cr
Sachin is sold to Jaya TV for 2.5 Cr

Now all said, where the hell they have such huge money?

I didn't like Baba because it failed to be a fun entertainer like many of his previous films and also failed as something with a message. It tried to be both and it succeeded in neither aspect. The first half wasn't TOO bad, but it was still pretty silly with him wasting half of his wishes on that kite, the volleyball scene, etc. As an overt message movie the message was lost in the shuffle of all that mysticism junk.

Rajni's films where he starts as a poor guy and becomes a wealthy man were made basically to gain support for him politically but at least they were entertaining to watch.

Thanks dvdunlimited for the explanations!

Of all the Rajani movies I watched, the one I liked best was Veera. I also liked Muthu. Didn't get Padayappa that much. Other than these and Baba I haven't seen any other Rajni movies.

Rajni-Manisha pairing was SO outrageously bad in BABA though.

BTW, I was wondering how did the kind of violence shown near the end of this film, pass through any (Indian or other) Censors?? Was this the worst violence seen in any Indian film or has there been worst??

I don't think this violence will pass through North American regulators even for an Adult or Restricted film??

You aint watched nothing man! If you call this violence, I am not sure what you will call for 99% of Tamil and Telugu movies. What you saw was not even a violence from 5 year old point of view, so imagine what trouble we (tamil and telugu people) are going thru' Its a hell.

Every single movie has atleast 25 murders, heros face in blood bath and creative ways of cutting ppl (even iraqis warlords who behead tourists has to learn a lot from these movies). Its hard to imagine a movie with out a fight or killing scenes.

Has to run , but will explain you in detail later but Chandramukhi is one of the very "decent family" movies in Tamil and Telugu terms.

actually, i completely disagree with DU re: chandramukhi!

it is NOT a "decent family" flick. has a lot of sex references. A LOT of them! Did superstar get a face lift? last i saw of him, IRL pics, he was wrinkled worse than my grandpa, and was bald on top. Special effects are horrid like in Virumandi. IMHO, Virumandi would've been a good movie (aside from Ilayaraja, ofcourse) had Kamal done the fight scenes with less "special effects". I can't believe the special effects for such HUGE stars are so craptacular whilst telugu movies have very good special effects (by indian standards).

the film seemed washed out at the theater. there were quite a bit of scenes without special effects that were blurry. I wonder how the tamil dvd will turn out! something wrong with the positive? did you also notice this DU?

it's a waste of a movie even for C grade centers. it was poorly directed, with many many many many flaws. the film was UNINTENSIONALLY comical. The audience were laughing during final moments of the movie due to how riddiculous the plot is. Mr Gold Medalist with 10 brains psychologist can read everyones minds except for Ganga. well, HAHA.

has this movie been declared a hit?? when is our thatha retiring? i can't wait for that day.

well, enough of my rant.

You mean, showing clearly a person being beheaded and the showing Head and Torso shaking separately. If that's not enough, clearly showing a high power soccer kick to the beheaded head. There is more. And then going after that person's female companion, drenching her in kerosene (or gasoline) and setting alight. All this not implied but shown.??

Violence often gets out of hand in Tamil films. Devar Magan has one character beheading another and a few other scenes of violence, and Gentleman has a scene of internal organs literally hitting the ground. Virumaandi had a few limb-chopping shots as well. I can't think of many Tamil films from the past few years that don't have one or more characters with a sickle in hand at some point.

Our censors will cut a song if it is too raunchy or they will bleep a few words here and there, but beheadings are okay

Rajini had some surgery on his lips due to discoloration from years of smoking.

P. Vasu isn't known as a particularly great director AFAIK. It's been a long time since I have seen anything by him, but he must have been unofficially kicked out of Tamil cinema for a while if he was working in Kannada films.

During late 80s and early 90s the "going after that person's female companion, drenching her in kerosene (or gasoline) and setting alight". During mid 90s they were showing "clearly showing a high power soccer kick to the beheaded head" and now a days they are showing "showing clearly a person being beheaded and the showing Head and Torso shaking separately"

Why blame movies, in Sun TV (Tamil TV Channel) there is a serial going on for Children (its called Velan, produced by Saregama) where one character is headless. On top of that, every time the title comes, they show the beheading of head. Its supposed to be a children's serial telecasted at 7:30 PM.

Coming back to movies again, once MGR and Sivaji duo were almost getting bigger (MGR bigger in politics and Sivaji bigger in appearance), they badly needed the next duo. Thats when Kamal and Rajini emerged. Initially both were giving good performance roles as well as good "masala" roles, but then at certain point, Rajini started acting in all Tamil remake of Amitabh movies and end up becoming Super* and Kamal decided to take the "other" route.

Now that Rajini and Kamal are at their retiering state (Rajini in 2 to 3 years and Kamals acting in another 5 years - then he will start directing more), they need substitution. It is very well known that Rajini has more money than Kamal because he is an action here and Kamal is not an action hero. So all tamil starts now a days wanted to be the next rajini (not kamal). End result, for the last 5 years (particularly after Baba movie) all movies are action movies.

If everyone gives action, then whats the difference? The result is showing different type of action. You wonder whats different type of action? Look at the pictures below





















The difference is different type of weapons. Yep.

Now coming back to CM, it doesnt have any of the crappy weapons (and infact most of Rajini movies). Also stunts in Rajini movies are little comical, in the sense that it is supposed to be funny for children, so they wont get scared (be it graphics or otherwise)

Now our Kamal is more than anything above. In his movies fight scenes are more like real. Infact this trend started with Kamal's Satya movie (also Shiva in Telugu by Nagarjuna) only, where the stunts were more appreciated than anything else.

Net net, they are spoiling the minds of ppl. Yes they do. My cousing who is doing 8th standard, having seen all the 3 new movies ranked the movies in the following order

1. Sachin - has fight
2. CM - has some fight but not good
3. No fight, only comedy - I didnt like it.

So ppl from their childhood have an expectation for a typical tamil movie and they are

1. 5 to 6 songs (30 minutes)
2. 5 to 6 fights (30 minutes)
3. unrelated comedy track (30 minutes)

Now the one who assemble the above nicely and drag the movie for 2:15 hr wins the race. others are loosers.

Ofcourse there are exceptions to this like

Kadhal
Autograph

But then they are one or two / year.

BTW Pav

1. This is the first RAjini movie having some sex reference/double meaning dialogue. Its unusual for Rajini movie, but this shows that Rajini clearly intend to do anything to get a "commercial" success

2. I quoted "decent family" because its not my view, but the view of many and magazines compared to other craps we have been going thru

3. Virumandi - I think you are referring to bullfight scenes. This is the best in the movie (the real scenes) and the wost in the movie (special effects)

4. CM is a winner based on the last 10 days of release, cuz theatres across TN is full, simply because the comparision for Rajini movie now is Baba.

5. Rajini still enjoys big(gest) fan club, probably biggest in the word. So even if he has a guest appearance (to me even CM is guest appearance only), people will see his movies.

poorly directed - who cares rajini is acting
many many many many flaws - who cares rajini is acting
UNINTENSIONALLY comical - yes, but rajini needed vadivelus help for the success of this movie
reddiculous plot - who cares rajini is acting
Mr Gold Medalist with 10 brains psychologist - hey you know in normal rajini movies they praise him like anything with some political word, so let him enjoy man. Its also funny cuz Rajini wanted to do a "doctor" role and he has done thru CM. So...

Having said all these, in CM rajini doesnt smoke - so its a +ve sign!

I think it was Pasupathi's version of the story that featured Kamal hacking limbs. However, I don't mind it in this film as it is supposed to be gritty and is not aimed towards family audiences.

I for sure am surprised.

Still, how did these gory scenes pass through US and Canadian regulators??