One of the (many) things I love about Chiranjeevi is his willingness to take on any style of choreography and to perform it as best he can. I am particularly fond of his many classically influenced dances. He may not have classical technique, but he can still be compelling and entertaining as he gives it his all. Plus there are usually excellent outfits. Here are a few of my favourites.
This clip from Subhalekha is a nice sample of straight up attempts to master the choreography. Not all equally successful, but visually pleasing nonetheless. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d buy an Allwyn fridge if it came with a svelte Chiru draped over it!
Chiru as mild mannered dance teacher versus the determination of Jayamalini and Jyotilakshmi. Ladies, I understand your motivation if not your wardrobe choices. (Enjoy the dancing, and don’t read the comments).
Tempted from his meditation by Madhavi, Chiranjeevi transforms into a blingy dancing vision (with sparkly sandals). (From Khaidi, 1983)
Sometimes the classical moments can be a bit surprising. A glimpse of Kathak styling (at 3m 20s) in this appropriately birthday themed song from Big Boss.
And even less explicable – but this song does bear out Chiranjeevi’s fearless attitude to dance and sequins.
Chiru looks amazing as Shiva, with smouldering eyes and strong physical presence. He moves with fluid purpose and intensity in this clip from Aapathbandavudu when Shiva attacks his enemies (around 5 min). His appearance as Shiva in Sri Manjunatha was less appealing, but I blame some of that on uninspired choreography. There are clips on Youtube if you’re keen.
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And then there’s one of the sillier tandavs in terms of costume, choreography and dishooming sound effects, but I love it. (From Sivudu Sivudu Sivudu)
And while I’m on the subject of Chiru in lycra bike shorts, I can’t help but recall this. Snake dances are classics too!
What are your favourites? Share the links, share the love 🙂
Charavarthy starts off with a standard storyline where there are the customary good-hearted villagers living under the tyranny of a wicked village president and his sleazy side-kick. Chiranjeevi is the rather rough and ready villager with a heart of gold who stands up to the president and fights against the various injustices he sees in the village. So far so good, (although rather routine and not too exciting).
But then, suddenly, there is this:
Definitely well worth the Rs35 I paid for the VCD! Sadly the rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to the expectations generated by watching Chiru dance in gold lame and black pleather, but there are still plenty of good songs, plus Chiru in a variety of dapper suits and bow ties – so I’m definitely calling it a good buy.
Chiranjeevi is Anji, a simple man who lives in the village and helps the local Swamiji (Somayajulu J.V.) look after a number of orphans. Swamiji runs a school at his ashram where the orphans also live, but it’s under threat from the village president (Satyanarayana Kaikala) who wants the land for himself. The president threatens and blusters, but Anji isn’t going to let anyone bully the gentle Swamiji and when the president’s thugs turn up at the school to throw the kids out (literally!), Anji makes sure that they are the ones forced to leave.
Anji is also intent on making the best match for his sister, who is back in the village after completing her studies. The scene where Anji meets up with her again is brilliant, although I’m not sure why he should be so shy and bashful on meeting his own sister. Maybe it’s just because his clothes are several sizes too small, but at least he’s made the effort to dress up for the occasion.
Despite the self-conscious nature of their meeting, Anji is soon trying to get Lakshmi (Ramya Krishnan) to marry his best mate, and the local police sergeant, Mohan (Mohan Babu). Mohan Babu hams it up nicely for the camera here and does his best to be the overall good guy in the film, with mixed success. Still it’s probably only natural that Lakshmi prefers her rich former class mate who has plenty of style, even if it is all wasted posing on the golf course.
Anji is doing his own fair share of romancing, as he chases after the feisty Rani (Bhanupriya). Although the two seem to spend most of their time arguing or at the very least teasing each other,there are some night-time shenanigans which result in this great song.
Bhanupriya is lovely here and she just sparkles in the scenes with Chiranjeevi. They both frequently look as if they are about to crack up laughing at each other and the camaraderie between them ensures some great chemistry as they veer between fighting and making up, usually both at the same time.
However the president has more evil plans afoot and Anji ends up losing an eye as he saves the ashram yet again, leaving him with an eye patch and a generally bad attitude. He picks a fight with Lakshmi’s rich suitor (Sudhakar) who is later found dead, sparking a hunt for the murderer. Since the fight with Anji was seen by everyone on the golf course, Anji is the obvious suspect, and Mohan is the man charged with bringing his friend to justice. There is much drama and scenery chewing as Mohan and Anji head for a show-down while Rani and Swamiji try to deal with the fall-out. The president’s servant is played by a young Brahmi, and he provides a large proportion of the comedy, along with Allu Ramalingayya as Rani’s quack doctor father. It’s worth keeping an eye on the various support actors in the background too, as below where the servant who brings the president his drink, totally unnoticed, helps himself to a glass as well.
That brings us to the re-incarnation of Anji as Chakravarthy, the famous disco dancer, who returns to his village presumably to clear his name and sort out the village president once and for all. And if he’s lucky hook up with Rani again too.
Chakravarthy is as far removed from Anji as it is possible to be. He is suave and sophisticated, dresses in smart suits and talks in English as he schmoozes the villagers. Mohan suspects Chakravarthy may be Anji, possibly due to the uncanny resemblance between the two, but is thrown off when Chakravarthy demonstrates that he has full use of his left eye. It’s a conundrum!
I’m not sure if the two functioning eyes is ever explained, but it doesn’t really matter since there are more fights, more drama and suspicious looks exchanged before the final big showdown to grab our attention. There are also more of K. Chakravarthy’s excellent songs. I couldn’t decide which to add in here, but decided to go with this as Bhanupriya gets to wear much more tasteful outfits than in a few of the others. Needless to say, Chiranjeevi looks perfectly styled in every one!
Although the film is overall a fairly standard masala flick, director Ravi Raja Pinisetty has added a few touches that bring originality into the mix. Since he later directed one of my favourite Chiru films, Yamudiki Mogudu, I was a little disappointed that he kept the flamboyance to a minimum in Chakravarthy, apart from disco dancer Chakrvarthy’s introduction number. But the more restrained costumes and comedy suit the overall style of the film. What I do like are the different dynamics in Anji’s relationships with his mentor, his lover and his best friend. The sudden shift when he reappears as Chakravarthy is also well envisaged, although I really did miss the subtitles that might have explained where he got all of his sudden sophistication. And the eye fixed up! Chakravarthy is definitely worth a watch for the chemistry between Chiranjeevi and Bhanupriya and for the concept of a disco dancer being the only person able to save the day! 3 ½ stars.
I had very low expectations of Chennai Express, mostly due to Rohit Shetty’s idea of humour. I expected something along the lines of “a typical filmi Rahul type wanders into a Tamil film. Hijinks ensue.” And that is what I got. Not entirely successful, but amusing enough with loads of colour and movement, Chennai Express is a good timepass.
Shah Rukh plays this Rahul as an anti-Rahul. Where the KKKG model Rahul would have made his grandfather’s last wish a priority, this one tries to skive off. Rahul has lived in comfort all of his 40 years and yet feels no obligation to family. He is an unappealing manchild clearly in need of a wakeup call. A series of misadventures see him trapped on the Chennai Express, headed straight for a showdown with a Tamil don and his family. Shah Rukh has no qualms about making Rahul a shallow idiot to start with and there is an air of self-parody about some of his preening and posing. I particularly liked the sly humour when Meenamma (Deepika Padukone) guesses he must be 50, or maybe even older. Shah Rukh does all his familiar shtick from hair ruffling, décolletage sniffing (you know the move), arm flinging, to the eyes welling with tears. Of course it wouldn’t be an SRK film without a far too long speech about some social issue. While I appreciated the content (women should be able to make choices for themselves) it was rather undermined by the context (blokes beating each other to a pulp so Rahul might win the right to give Meena her choice). Shah Rukh isn’t perfect, and he does ham wildly at times but he also has the courage to show off those spindly legs in a lungi.
Deepika gives one of her better performances as Meenamma (leaving aside her much criticised accent which didn’t bother me that much). From her DDLJ style entry (and one of the funnier scenes that ensued) and her cheerful explanation that her father (the excellent Sathyaraj) is a renowned don, Meenamma made an impression. Deepika always looks pretty but often fails to convey chemistry with her co-stars. She seems to have overcome that as her scenes with Shah Rukh are lively, often fun and even moving. She has worked on her dancing too and appeared to good effect in the big production numbers. And her wardrobe was just lovely although I’m not sure where all the sarees kept coming from. Generous village ladies I guess.
Initially dismissive of each other, there is no insta-love. Their relationship develops through forced proximity and dealing with external threats. A series of events open each character’s eyes to their feelings and the triggers for these changes make sense within the story. Meena is the first to fall but she has reservations about Rahul and isn’t overcome by silliness just because her heart flutters. The romance works for me as it isn’t the primary motivation from the start, despite Rahul’s pathetic flirting.
As I expected, the comedy is often too broad and overplayed for my tastes. But there were some wittier scenes that I really liked. Rahul and Meenamma communicate in front of their abductors by singing in Hindi to Bollywood songs, many from SRK films. When Meena finds out Rahul is a mithaiwala or tries to guess his age, Deepika’s reactions seemed spontaneous and very funny. But it is hit and miss. Heather found several things funny that I would edit out (e.g. Meenamma’s ‘nightmare’) and other audience members were just about wetting themselves in scenes that had me checking my watch. I liked the product placements that were often done in tongue-in-cheek style.
There is a lot of chatter about the South Indian stereotypes portrayed. Well, there is just about every stereotype present and the North Indians were less than perfect. Rahul was arrogant, ignorant and not really interested in Tamil culture, assuming people were quaint caricatures or savages. The Tamil rowdies were played by the guys who play Tamil rowdies in almost every film; swarthy, stocky and spiral permed as always. The ‘other’ South stereotypes also appeared – salt of the earth villagers with hearts of gold. There was even a comedy Punjabi policeman. No one was safe. Maybe it is just that years of watching Indian film portrayals of fat people, coloured people, white people, disabled people, what was the other one … oh yes, women, has eroded my sensibilities. Rohit Shetty gave some standards his own fun twist too – like trading a convoy of white Sumos for a fleet of colourful 4WDs.
The supporting cast are largely playing the same roles they play in their own film industry so that was fun to see. Nikitin Dheer was perfectly fine as Meenamma’s unwanted prospective groom but I couldn’t help wishing they cast favourite “That Guy” Subbaraju. Maybe he refused on the grounds that singing Chamak Challo would be bad for his image.
Hooray for item numbers! Priyamani and her back up dudes were fantastic. I especially liked the enthusiasm of the guy in the yellow scarf who appears between SRK and Priyamani and the guy in the stripey mesh singlet. Who cares if the song lyrics are stupid? Vishal-Shekhar had me wanting to hit replay and dance! SRK struggling to keep up with the chunky backing dancers and looking like a fish out of water may not have been intentional but it suited Rahul. He looks happy and absolutely knackered in the behind the scenes bits in that clip.
The other songs were visually extravagant and included all the other SI film staples that couldn’t fit in the narrative. The much vaunted tribute to Rajinikanth is a dud. While Rajini is not much of a dancer, there was little of his style in the number. The fight scenes and car stunts are what I’d expect from a Hindi director with a big budget and a couple of Tamil DVDs on the coffee table; spectacular but a bit slower and more laboured than if this was a real South film. And like many South Indian films, this is visually gorgeous.
I liked more than I disliked about Chennai Express, but apart from the songs I don’t think I would watch it again. Despite all the Tamil references, this reminds me more of a Telugu film as – spoiler – no one is raped and there are lots of survivors at the end. Worth a watch, more so if you’re a Shah Rukh fan.
Heather says: I also had really low expectations for this film which is possibly why I enjoyed Chennai Express as much as I did. For a change I even liked Deepika and I thought she did particularly well in the comedy scenes. Perhaps it’s only when she appears opposite Shah Rukh that she actually manages to act. I also laughed much more than I was expecting – after all I don’t think I’ve been amused by a Rohit Shetty film before either. Chennai Express is really very funny, despite the humour mostly being very broad and largely based on various caricatures. However as Temple mentions, there was some more subtle humour and the references to many older films were witty and often poked fun at SRK more than at any particular stereotype.
I enjoyed the music and dancing more on screen too, since I hadn’t been terribly impressed with the soundtrack on first listening. The highlight was definitely Priyamani and watching Shah Rukh trying to keep up, but most of the songs were well pictured and enjoyable. Any song is always much better with the addition of elephants in my opinion! Overall the film looks beautiful, although it really could have been almost anywhere in the south and only the language placed the film in Tamil Nadu.
Chennai Express is not one of my favourite Shah Rukh Khan films, but definitely not his worst, and there are a few scenes I would like to watch again. Not the lungi dance tribute to Rajni over the end credits though – I’d recommend leaving when the credits start to roll!
Cinema Chaat 