Story, Screenplay, Dialogues & Direction: Lohithadas
Music: Raveendran

In the late 80's and early 90's, Lohithadas used to write scripts whose strength lay in their simplicity and touch with reality. Directors like Sibi Malayil and Bharathan converted them into marvelous movies which were artistic and commericial successes. Kireedam, His Highness Abdullah, Bharatham and Amaram brought accolades for Malayalam cinema. Then, Lohi decided to direct movies himself...

Sort of a hit when first released in 1998, this movie stars Mohanlal, Manju Warrier and Lal. A flimsy storyline salvaged only by the acting calibre of its stars, this proved once again that Lohithadas would be better off sticking to script writing.

Mohanlal and Lal are friends in Bombay. They accidently kill Siddhique. h: Going through the dead man's papers, Mohanlal finds out about his family back in Kerala, and decides to go there to make amends. Manju Warrier plays Siddhique's headstrong sister in Kerala, presenting a rough exterior to all the hardships she has to face in trying to earn a living. Lal follows Mohanlal to Kerala, tries his old trade of pimping, breaks up with Mohanlal, makes contact with local thugs, blah blah blah

As mentioned earlier, the only redeeming feature of this movie is the acting of its stars. Mohanlal plays the wanderer returning to his roots with characteristic subtleity. Lal follows up his awesome villain role in Jayaraj's Kaliyattam with another show-stopping performance. The real star though is Manju Warrier. In the performance of a life time, she brings to life the rough girl who has to carry the burden of earning a living for her entire family in the face of great obstacles. (If I remember right, she got the State Award for Best Actress for this role).

Now for the DVD. This is the best Malayalam DVD to date. With anamorphic video and (thankfully) the original mono soundtrack, Media Dimensions has done a fine job in authoring this disc (motion artifacts are still visible, and the print used shows evidence of wear and tear, but hey, we are talking of Mallu DVD here!)). Colors are nice and saturated. Detail in dark scenes is particularly good (check the screen shots). English subtitles are provided. They are pretty fast though, and not always grammatically very correct.

Compared to the soft picture and pseudo-5.1 audio of previous Surya DVDs (authored by the infamous Super Digital), this is a thousand times better in quality!

PS: For somebody looking to get into Malayalam movies, I'd still recommend getting the Chandralekha DVD. The classic comedy and chemistry between the stars will ensure high class entertainment, though the DVD is marred by lousy audio authoring.

Main menu:




Chapters:




Songs Menu:




Cast Info:




Subtitles Menu:





Edited By ali on June 01 2002 at 17:48

Edited By ali on June 01 2002 at 17:49

Edited By ali on June 01 2002 at 17:49

Hey Ali, as usual, could you please resize these images? The movie is actually in 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio, but my copy of WinDVD captures them in 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio (hence the vertically stretched look of all the people in the screenshots).

Thanks, Chaver.



Edited By chaver on May 31 2002 at 18:54

hey chaver thanks for these shots. I'm still working on getting those Mohanlal DVDs back for screenshots. I haven't forgot

Raj

Raj, I had to get something along with Kanmadam, so I got Minnaram. Man, the difference between the DVDs is like day and night. The picture is softer than VHS, and the print used has so much wear and tear it hurts the eyes! I have made some screenshots, but then it doesn't have any subtitles, so the only people interested would be you and me and since both of us now have a copy, decided against posting them.

I'd still appreciate screenshots of Kalapani, Chenkol, Commissioner and Chemmeen. I'm pretty sure nobody is going to redo them, so might as well get them, as long as they are in their original aspect ratios (no pan-and-scam!).

I'm really happy with the audio quality of Kanmadam. This is far better than the lousy soundtrack of Chandralekha. Hopefully, all the new Mallu DVDs would be this good. In fact, I'm going to call up Surya and congratulate them; they need to know that customers really care for quality.

By the way, the last time I talked with them, they mentioned that Kireedam and Nadodikkattu were in the works. I have no idea on the veracity of their statements, but I hope to god that this is true. Sethumadhavan and Dasan, can't wait dude!

Thanks chaver - looks like someone is getting their DVDs right. Judging from the screen shots - looks like a good DVD.

BTW corrected the AR on screen shots.

Ali

Thanks, Ali. This DVD is far from perfect (picture becomes fuzzy during any on-screen motion), but its a great improvement in quality as far as Mallu discs go.

This DVD is actually authored by Prasad Labs, the same folks who do the Ayngaran and ERO$ DVD's. Media D just replicated the disc.

I have "Chemmeen," authored by Super Digital. Here are the specs:

1.33:1 original aspect ratio
2.0 DD mono
Single sided single layer
No chapter listings except for a song menu

I can't post screenshots, so I'll just tell you what its like. The print has lots of yellow spots on it throughout. Being a single layered disc, there is plenty of pixel breakup on fast motion and with waves. And being a film about a fishing community, there are lots of waves! Sometimes frames are missing from the print, but its not a major problem.

The audio is average. Dialogue is intelligible as far as I can tell and the music sounds pretty good.

No English subtitles are included, which is a shame, as this film was the first Southern film to win the President's Gold Medal for Best Feature Film (1965).

Sunny, Surya released 3 other DVDs along with Kanmadam (F.I.R, Nirnayam and Pingami). I believe all three are anamorphic, but is there someway to know whether they were done by Prasad Labs too?

Dragun, thanks for the info on Chemmeen. I believe this was the first ever DVD in Malayalam, that could be the reason for the poor quality.

If Surya's future DVDs are atleast as good as Kanmadam, I can see a HUGE dent coming up in my bank account.

Minor update: Just called up Surya to congratulate them on the quality of this DVD. They once again confirmed that they have about 40 DVDs under production, including Kireedam, Nadodikkattu and Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha!



Edited By chaver on June 04 2002 at 05:58

If the DVD show the picture in anamorphic and in 2.25:1 ratio its done by prasad labs. They believe that the 2.25:1 is the correct ratio for Indian films. Dum pricks or wot! Anyway at least they are improving south Indian cinema on DVD. Shame they can't do the same for Hindi films!