Kadhalum Kadanthu Pogum (2016)

timesofindia March 18, 2016

★ 7/10

An educated girl falling for a ruffian has become such a cliche today that we have even stopped rolling our eyes when this happens in a Tamil film nowadays. But with Kadhalum Kadanthu Pogum, Nalan Kumarasamy shows that in the right hands even a cliche can feel fresh and new. The film is a remake of Kim Kwang-sik's 2010 Korean film My Dear Desperado. In fact, that film's alternate title, Gangster Lover, is such a blatant description of its plot. But Nalan has localised the story (with quirky humor that is unmistakably his) so wonderfully that right from the initial scene, when we see Yazhini (Madonna) explain how she 'ran away' from home, we are in Tamil cinema terrain. She is an engineering graduate (as she puts it in a later scene, who in Tamil Nadu isn't?) who has come to Chennai from her small town Vilupuram in the hope of standing on her own. For a while, her dream seems to have c…

Reno December 4, 2016

★ 8/10

**Sometimes the first impressions are so wrong!** The director, Nalan Kumarasamy's second directional film. His First, 'Soodhu Kavvum' was a massive hit and now back with this retaining the same lead actor. I did not remember the original Korean film this one was based on, but while watching it, I remembered some of the parts. I think the directed did well, because it is not easy to keep up to the original standards. And as usual Vijay Sethupathi did not disappoint me. The Madonna Sebatian's Tamil debut film and she was wonderful. This story was told from her perspective, well mostly, particularly in the first half. The story of an engineering graduate who comes to the regional capital, Chennai, seeking a job in an IT company. As she struggles to get one in this competitive world, meets her new neighbour, a thug who often bumps each other and needlessly have quarrels. But later eve…