That’s exactly what i am afraid off (both from a creative and economic standpoint)- ANNIYAN'S budget is over 10 Million US $ , now that might be peanuts for Hollywood slandered but by Indian slandered that’s lot of money. Now the success of ANNIYAN / CHANDRAMUKHI has/will spawn more such costly and glossy productions and the chances of "repeated" success is minimum . now the problem ( imo) is two-folds

1) Indian cinema really doesnot progress ( a land of copy-cats we are)
2) Social/economic situations (esp. among producers) that lead to dramatic results such as suicide of producers not able to recover their loss ( case-in-point the death of GV <-- who can believe this actually happened !)

In addition what we really do is hire SFX folks from Hollywood , "Indian" money can only buy cheap B-grade SFX team from Hollywood (look at credits of any bollywood film) and it shows in the poor un-polished work that you complain about - what we need is a homegrown SFX team, where are all the Indian programmers !!!

Instead of trying to "impress" the audience i think "we" as Indians should concentrate on more down-to-earth problems and leave the “impressive-visuals” to perhaps Hollywood - maybe we can look at the disintegration of the "Indian-family" ( an indian Ozu anyone?) or even look at the more serious caste-problems in contemporary society , how about making a biting satire (an Indian bunuel ?) - oh there is so much material that can be made which is not only entertaining but also enlightening - i guess i wish for too many things .



There you go , it proves my theory that pretty much 98 % of bollywood films are really Ed-Wood B-Movies - they have the "passion" not the "skill" required

DVDISOIL,

"disintegration of the "Indian-family" - wasn't that Mira Nair's MONSOON WEDDING? I know that Indians love doing the soap opera, but they should still try and do something different that doesn't have to do with family themes - I don't mean go the hollywood route of special effects and such - just do something different.

Shankar spent 10 million dollars on ANNIYAN? Jeez, that's sad. Where did all the money go???? I thought it cost maybe 1 million...I have less respect for ANNIYAN now knowing it cost that much...

Mani Rathnam is a genius by the way. He really is India's best director. He's the only director that can make a Bollywood movie in a chill way, not in a high on crack and speed way...I've been watching half of the Tamil dub of DIL SE and this movie is already a masterpiece. I've only watched the first hour and it's a 10 out of 10 movie! (Although the first hour still has the typical way a Bollywood leading man falls in love with the girl - it's called serious psychotic stalking. That shit is crazy, and a little hard to believe. I know it's a different culture, but stalking is stalking!But once again, I'm used to Bollywood, and I understand that protagonist male has to stalk the woman to get her to fall in love...DIL SE is like a normal movie and it's Bollywood as well. The dub is pretty good. Sharukan's Tamil dub definitely sounds better than his real voice...Where does DIL SE take place anyway, where the terrorist group lives? Pakistan? Kashmir? South India?? Don't tell me what happens in the movie!

Come on man, its only once in a while we get to see movies like Anniyan in Tamil. DId it really cost the US equivalent of $ 10 million? [/quote]

[/quote]

In indian currency cost of production was 35 crore.

Vikram - 3 Crore
Shankar - 2 Crore
HJ - 80 lakhs
Rest of the crew - 5 crore
Film Replication Expenses - 5 crore
Still its only 16 crore.

Where does the rest of the money goes

1. For Andankakka Rendakka song, they pained an entire mountain and the leading roads, roads in a silk saree design and mountain with MGR, Sivaji, Kamal, Rajni pictures, AND after the shooting they painted everything with "natural" color, so the road appeared black and the rock appeared "brown" - Do we need that?

2. The paid more than 2 crore for the iyengar veetu azhagae - the tulip garden - do we need that

The probably paid a bit for graphix, but thats okay, but the rest of the expenses are not worth it, specially for Sada.

shankar himself gets 5 crores for direction...not 2 crores.

It cost around 26 crores not 35.

I agree the songs were not that well picturized. they were not boring, but didn't need to spend so much money on them.

Shud've been some one more wow looking than ordinary looking sada. But who is wow looking these days?

Well yes and no - Monsoon wedding really dealt with the upper strata of society. What i was referring to is the destruction of the middle class Indian family, esp. look at the recent immigration of young people for work or otherwise from India to other first world countries leaving behind their parents, relatives and friends. This is such a big change thats brining about a big socio-economic & political flux in society very similar to 1950s Japan ( a reason why I just keep revisiting Ozu's Tokyo Story , the movie has so much to offer , a truly universal theme that really transcends space and time )



I will have to agree that he is prob the most consistent contemporary directors in India but even he has to confine himself to the "rules of bollywood" which unfortunately is hurting him more than helping him - i hope he breaks free of bollywood and starts making more personal movie


And as for Anniyan's budget - the last i read was ~ 35 crores or 5-7 million US $$ ( including distribution cost ) for some reason i thought it was 50 crores - my bad , still i think its way too much money wasted

I think he is a better director than writer, but even then his films are more interesting than most.



I wonder what exactly that went to. Some of the things they hyped up about the film (shooting in the flower festival in the Netherlands, the Thiruvayaaru recreation, etc.) didn't turn out to be anything special in the film.

I just finished watching DIL SE! It's one of the best Bollywood movies ever. 10 out of 10! I still like MISSION KASHMIR the most. I thought MISSION KASHMIR was more emotional, but DIL SE was really good - one of Sharukan's best performance ever. It's really a shame that there aren't more good directors out there, because one cannot see the true potential of the acting skills of Bollywood actors if they keep on doing these lousy movies with bad directors...

My favorite Bollywood movies - MISSION KASHMIR, DIL SE and FIZA - all deal with the same turning-to-terrorism theme. I think this is where Bollywood excells when they mix the music with the tragedy/politics. I think the mixing with tragedy and music is a lot more special mix than the mixing of "happy happy joy joy family family" and music (Chalte Chalte, Kal Ho Na Ho). I think the more serious the theme of the movie (terrorism), the better and more unique the Bollywood style works. It's sort of like how LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (holocaust), LES MISERABLE (the broadway version) and HAIR (Vietnam war) worked...I would like to see more musicals mixing serious historical tradegies - a holocaust musical, an Israel-palestine musical. Everyone associates musicals as being happy and jokey, but the listed above musicals (except for LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL) shows that a musical can be taken seriously as a movie like SCHINDLER'S LIST. I'm all for a 9/11 musical, but not yet...maybe in 20 years...

i have never really found indiafm movie reviews to be good, they basically have given the ratings based on how the movie will perform at box office, but i haven't read their reviews lately, may be i will give them another try
hey toddly6666,
have you tried planetbollywood.com and b4utv.com for indian film reviews?
i have found their reviews to be very good. let's just say they have given satisfactory reviews as far as i am concerned
and oh yeah... i am an indian by race

I've watched an hour and a half of SHANKAR'S INDIAN, and it's by far one of the worst Bollywood movies that I have seen! It's all filler and boring and the acting is awful! Kamal Hassan is simply awful in this movie - I'm embarrased watching him in his action scenes and dancing scenes. It's just embarrasing. He was a lot better in Aalavandhan, but even that is not saying much...The movie may be especially bad after just watching DIL SE, but I have a feeling this movie is bad, bad, bad regardless...ANNIYAN and BOYS are masterpieces in comparison - Well, it seems Shankar has improved as a director as time progresses...

Any indian who watched all these movies will have the opposite to say. Well, in general you can not watch more than 1 shankar movie, because they are all same.

Not really..

Boys, Anniyan, Muthalvan, Kathalan they r all different stories.

I haven't seen Indian or Kaadhalan, but Shankar is essentially the Michael Bay of Tamil films. He makes loud, bombastic movies. The only one of his films I didn't hate was Anniyan.

Well, I'll definitely agree that all of Shankar's movies deal with the same theme of being pissed off at beaurocracy, but INDIAN, certainly controversial and interesting when it came out, is an awful movie now. There is absolutely no filler in ANNIYAN, compared to the massive filler in INDIAN.
Look at the fight scenes in ANNIYAN, compared to the laughable parody fight scenes in INDIAN.
There is a massive difference between the two in the context of filmmaking - and Shankar has certainly improved and matured over the years when it comes to directing, editing, and sticking to a story. Maybe in one of his future movies, he will really get his repeating theme across in a more mature way a la Spielberg, but so far, I agree, he is like the Michael Bay of India...

I have seen Kathalan, Indian, Muthalvan, Boys, Anniyan.

So for Anniyan is the best in terms of script and direction.
Boys was an allright teen film in the first half. Second half is ridiculous.
Muthalvan - other than the forced and contrived romantic plot, the movie is good.
Indian - don't remember anything from it. I remember being somewhat affected by the climax.
Kathalan - it was a good film for its time. The second half is still pretty entertaining. First half romance has aged quite a bit now and seems contrived. I'm sure it was fresh back then.

Anyway Shankar cannot be called a great director in terms of quality of films. But he does make interesting movies and each time they have some new scenes. And his movies although different are still feel good entertainers, unlike certain other directors who make "different" movies that are plainly unwatchable and unpleasant movie watching experience.

But from hearing the opinions of many here, It seems Keralians love Shankar movies a lot more than Tamilians do. BOYS for ex, was a big hit in Kerala. Anniyan too did great in Kerala.