Finally got around to watching Okkadu and Ghilli. The plan was to post a review in the Tollywood sub if I liked the former and in the Kollywood sub if I liked the latter. I ended up looking them both so I decided to post here.

A Common Plot Archetype

It's a familiar plot archetype — a happy-go-lucky hero lives a normal life in his hometown. He goes to some distant land, meets a girl who is in some kind of trouble and brings her to his home. Eventually the girl's trouble follow them in the climax. As someone from Kerala I'm familiar with this plot archetype through films like Meleparambil Aanveedu, Thenmavin Kombathu and Godha (among many others).

Actually watching this film made me want to compile a list of such films here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MalayalamMovies/s/d7SAW4jpZ3

Please add films in other languages if you can think of any.

Review

I don't know if it's possible to avoid comparisons since Ghilli isn't a lesser adaptation in any way and since this is a double review I guess I'll compare where it's appropriate.

The most noticeable aspect of Okkadu is its making. The movie has style. It's technically really well made, from the opening fight scene to the car chase to the minor details in the fight choreography and the kabbadi choreography to the lens choices to the editing. It's something that's noticeable absent in Ghilli. The remake is technically quite clumsy, especially in the opening fight. The car chase is great in both.

The most bizarre part of Okkadu is the strange homage (?) to West Side Story that opens the film. I can't call it a rip off since it's different enough but it feels out of place because it's using the western musical language of West Side Story in a movie that's nowhere near that genre. Okkadu straight up repurposes the score from the classic musical including the whistling which is really jarring because the score has meaning so it's like taking a page from Little Women and just putting it in beginning of The Martian. It doesn't belong there.

Ghilli is one more movie removed from West Side Story so the finger snapping just comes across as even weirder.

Another strange borrowing in the beginning is how the fight just randomly switches into the ladder fight from that Jet Li movie. Ghilli, for some reason, replaces it with The Transporter's oil fight. It's all random.

But after all that is done the movies settle into the main plot and things become considerably more consistent. While I was neither a fan of Mahesh Babu's underplaying not Vijay's over playing the emotions I really enjoyed the family dynamics in Ghilli more. The changes that Ghilli makes give Ashish Vidyarthi a lot to do and he gets an actual character arc unlike the original. I also liked how he stood up to Prakash Raj more.

Speaking of Prakash Raj Ghilli finds a way to use him more and give him a lot of the frustrated, manic villain character that he's so good at. He seems to be having a blast in the remake.

But the way Okkadu transitions from the jeep to the train to Prakash Raj is so good. Ghilli missed the trick of that transition even though it tries to do the same thing. The following chase through the train is also much better edited in Okkadu. Okkadu consistently tries to compose and frame really cinematic shots and it's interesting to see Ghilli try and fail to capture the same kind of shots.

Trisha is a much better actor than Bhumika, at least in this movie. I haven't seen Bhumika in anything else I can remember. And acting wise there's another interesting thing I noticed. It's in the scene where the hero sees the villain drag the girl to his car. In Ghilli you can actually see Vijay considering the situation and making the decision to save her in his face and body language but in Okkadu I didn't get that from Mahesh Babu. I really like those scenes where a character has to make a decision and the actor has to sell that internal thought process without any dialog or voice over.

This isn't about who is the better actor. Mahesh Babu great at the physical side and in selling the character's intensity and rage whereas Vijay comes across as a sincere guy who is caught up in this situation.

Coming to the climax, while I liked Okkadu's ending, I also really liked how Ghilli streamlined the climax and just had everything culminate in the kabbadi match. The remake also makes it Trisha's choice to not go to the US and stay with Vijay instead of being captured and having that choice taken away from her (just remembered the original also does this. I saw them back to back so it's kinda blending together. My bad). The remake also gives the father an arc by having him accept his son's choices. In the original they don't have a conflict so there's no arc.

But the original ending where Bhumika's father kills Prakash Raj is a much more appropriate ending. And Ghilli just stops. There's no ending, it just stops.

As for the songs Okkadu has good songs but I've got to give this one to Ghilli.

Neither movie needed to be so long. Both of these should have had a scene of the hero apologizing to the girl for slapping her.

All in all I had a blast with both films. They have their own strengths and weaknesses. They're both absolutely worth your time if you're interested in this plot archetype.

So in the scene they stole a painting from museum/mansion and replace it with fake they bought in a flask/bottle.

Also they have shown selling of a fake MF Hussain painting

Like it just doesn't exist anymore?? Where else can I watch it? I like rewatching that dheera dheera scene from time to time

I don't remember the name of this movie but I remember some small part the movie which was like this, movie starts with a marriage scene everything was going great but an argument stared over a religious idol, i think it was a love marriage the custom was that bridegroom family will the the idol of the goddess to their house but bride's family argumed that in their family bride's family takes the idol to their house. The argument escalated and both family end up hitting each other and marriage was cancelled but towards the end they got two idols and was married Happily.

I would really appreciate if anybody can tell me the name of the movie as I don't remember the name of actors also just this small part. Thank you.

Just watched chamkila and it got me thinking. If chamkila’s songs can be justified as a “mirror of the society”, what went wrong with animal? Before we jump to conclusions, hear me out!

While animal was criticised for glorifying misogynistic behaviour, weren’t chamkila and his songs misogynistic too? Isn’t making a movie on that glorifying it? Would chamkila (the movie) be equally criticised if SRV directed it? Would a story like animal get positive recognition if it was directed by imtiaz ali? Did the critics only criticise animal because the protagonist was rich? Would they have the same stance if the protagonist was poor and hence not “relatable”? Haven’t we had many problematic characters from poorer backgrounds?

P.S before anyone makes any personal attacks, I liked both the movies and I am a woman. And let’s talk only about the stories here and not editing or cinematography here.

It is a South Indian thriller movie. A man and his wife are in a troubled relationship. He fights with her and kills his wife and hides her in the bathroom. His friends come over. But later it is revealed that the wife is alive and murdered her husband instead and drove to the police station with his body.

I saw an Indian movie around 7 - 10 years ago on some tv channel, all i remember is the plot about a kid that was rollerskating falling in a gutter and how they try and find him, it suddenly came back into my memory and I've been searching for a week or so and have gotten no results, also its most likely a South Indian film but i dont remember well enough to confirm it.

I have recently came across ads of this festival and I am interested in submitting my project. I don't have any information about this. Please enlighten me.

Hello, peeps.

I am looking for the Culcutta Trilogy (1971) by Mrinal Sen. I can't seem to find it online. It's in Bengali. Does anyone know where I will find the torrent for the movies with English subtitles?

Thank you.

Hey guys! I wanted to put up a few posters in my hostel room. I went online on sites like StickItUp, etc, but there were no stickers/posters related to these movies.

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Please suggest a few websites : )

Mollywood (Malayalam cinema), Kollywood (Tamizh Cinema) and Tollywood (Telugu cinema).

What are some things that each of these movie industry does better than others