I will concentrate myself on Vikram in both roles

I will see Ravanan tomorrow in Germany.
No sight of Raavan here in central Europe

Does it imply equivalent Raavan kidnapping equivalent Sita ?? Does it imply any bond between them ?? Does the film invoke any sympathies for Raavan ??

If yes, no way would I want to see this film, even on video. Who would ??

Wouldn't mind seeing the film if referrences to Ram, Sita, Raavan etc are not in the film.

Mani's creativity is going south by his movies and clearly depending on technology a lot more these days.

This is Valmiki's (poet from south who interpreted Ramayan differently and praises Raavan) version of ramayan. Mani took this and made a movie. Still dont understand why he has to ask a "hanuman" character jumping around in the jungle. He is clearly out of his mind.

In TN, this will run well as anything against god will do good in TN (Periyar impact). I doubt if this will have a good show in North. More than that, its interesting to see how the sena's will interpret this movie

Heard that this is Mani's last movie - Thank god.

References are there and explicit.

Watched RAAVANAN (tamil). I thought it was a good one time watch.

Postives:

Locations keeps this film interesting

Vikram

Cinematography by Manikandan & Santosh Sivan.

ARR's music and bgm.

Negatives:

I didn't care about the characters and their fates.

The wire work used in some of the scenes.

*SPOILER ALERT* It's ok for a one time watch, but one expects much much better from Mani Ratnam. Of all the Master's efforts, I found this his weakest effort. Lots of style with little substance. Santosh Sivan and V. Manikandan's cinematography of the lush locales is breath-taking, but scenery alone does not make a brilliant movie. It is basically the typical Hindi film revenge plot, but told from the perspective of the 'victim' of the vengeance seeker. It's even using the tired old sister and rape sequence. I know it's also based on the Ramayan, but as a non-Hindu, all of that means little to me.
Acting by the main characters is all mediocre, but supporting performances by Ravi Kissen and Nikhil Dwivedi were both excellent. AB Jr.'s chak-a-chak was grating as much as Aishwarya's non-stop screaming and even Rahman's over the top background score. Let's hope next time Ratnam chooses different actors for his movie. These two were great in Guru, but very out of sorts here.

5.5/10

MY comment on Ravanan (tamil)

As I only know the basic about the Ramayan I won´t compare it to Ravanan

I watched Ravanan in Munich /Germany . Me and my friends the only Non-tamil viewers. Sadly there were no subtitles. And there were some problem showing the movie . We had 3 times a different begin (-_^)

As already seen from the trailers Vikram´s peformance is mesmerising. With first scene of Veera standing in cave´s entry moving in the wind (I know it is not the first scene, but it was shown as first scene to us, then 2 others starts followed), what you could expect from him. You believed all his feelings and cared most for him, than for all the other 2 main characters.

Ash on the other hand has nothing to do than showing 2 faces, eyes open wide and screaming. That´s all. . Only beauty shots of her. Perfect hair, perfect polished nails (she has only 1 time dirty nails, climbing the well) and the clothes so undestroyable. Seems she lived in Disneyland and not in the jungle. Many other actress could have done that.

See how Priyamani did a brilliant performance in her short role compared to Ash.
Wished her role was bigger.

Prithviraj as Dev tried his best but the roles wasn´t that convincing. There wasn´t much feelings between him and his wife.

Karthik and Prabhu did a good job, cant say about the dialogues as I hardly understood any word.

Telling a story slowly could work but how many nature shots and beauty shot of Ash to you need?
Some scenes looked like a L´Oreal advertising. I could only connect to Veera, Vennila and his brothers then for Raagini and Dev. Also the ending , would luv a more drastic ending . The bridge scene would have been a good option.

My friends and my comment at the end: Lets throw her off the bridge and go home
(Original comment by Abhi to Vikram as Vikram mentioned it in the interview)

I also watched Raavan partly , it seems that both are little bit different cut.

Lol! I do like ash/abhi/ratnam ki trishul aag!

**SPOILERS BELOW**
There's actually more than meets the eye in this mani ratnam tale of Ramayan. Ratnam claims this is probably his most unusual film, and purposely so, his direction here is very amateur. Those expecting a bona-fide Ratnamesque film out of Raavan, instead, I think Ratnam has given us something else to chew on. Changing around bits of the popular tale of Ramayan(as most people know of it), Mani Ratnam's Raavan is clearly a critique on the mythological tale. Without actually going into detail as to why I believe this to be(I'm really lazy when it comes to typing lengthy post), ratnam is cleverly being upfront with his objection to the demanoization of the South(India(n)? Sri Lanka?) racially by the North. Whether this has any relevance to today's time, I fail to see. Why has Mani Ratnam made this film in 2010? Given my main concern with this question, I lack to find any great importance in this film.

The film sucked! Snooze film

It would be interesting if you saw Raavan, Ravanan or Villain due to the 2 different main actors.

the DVD of Raavan is supposingly released on 10th August

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/B003Q84I06

damm I have to get both but for the Ravanan it will be the BR