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SIVAJI THE BOSS: DVD Mini Review

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SIVAJI THE BOSS: DVD Mini Review

Old 04-12-08, 04:18 PM
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SIVAJI THE BOSS: DVD Mini Review

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SIVAJI THE BOSS



I knew this was going to be a Bollywood masterpiece when I saw the trailer for this crazy live-action political cartoon movie. Bollywood movies suck ass and stink with cheese, but if there is one Bollywood to see this year, go see SIVAJI THE BOSS! This movie cost around 100 Million dollars to make. See how they spent the money! The character Sivaji is played by India Tamil's biggest star Rajini (equivalent to Jackie Chan of China or Sharuhk Khan of India Hindi), whom does one movie once every 2 years (extremely impressive for Bollywood actors whom usually do a movie a week) and he just whoops ass through out the whole flick. Like all flamboyant Bollywood actors, who think they are cool just because they are aware of current western trends, speak some English, and act like they are so hot, watching Rajini is like watching a serious version of Austin Powers. You can't help but like him. SAVAJI THE BOSS can be interpreted as a perfect spoof of a Bollywood film or as a perfect update of the 70s/80s Bollywood action movies which star old, not-so-sexy hairy mustached Indian dudes in the lead. This totally entertaining three-hour film is about a rich American Software System Architect who returns to his homeland India to try and open up free hospitals and free colleges for the people. All he wants to do is do good, but he is prevented from doing so by corrupt dirty officials. Eventually after struggling to get things done the lawful way, he takes matters in his own hands and kicks the crap out of the corrupt officials to do his good deeds for the nation of India. Along the way, he creepily stalks a 20-year old hot Tamil girl hopefully to become his wife. (wow, "courting a girl" is so passe, but "stalking a girl" really works in India - such slick cassanovas!). The film is also riddled with some great songs done by the famous A.R. Rahman (Bombay Dreams).

Shankar, the director of SIVAJI, is one of the most ballsy Bollywood directors for consistently critisizing the corrupt Indian government in most of his films (Deepha Mehta and Mira Nair are controversial Indian directors as well, but they ain't Bollywood). Shankar is also famous for making the biggest budget Bollywood flicks and using the most current special effects that are found in other Western action movies. He made the first Bollywood martial-arts film - ANNIYAN, which I also recommend. He's still a bit obsessed with the Matrix movies, as many of the action scenes are inspired by those flicks as well as Robert Rodriguez. For a Bollywood film, his movies have pretty sweet action scenes (no comparison to a western film, but he's getting close). SIVAJI THE BOSS has tons of well choreographed action scenes, martial arts scenes, and one pretty damn original and intense car demolition derby scene. The movie is worth it alone just to see this goofy nerdy leading man transform into a goofy version of Matrix's Morpheus. Rajini has a stunt double, sometimes obvious in some of the action scenes, but overall Rajini seems to move pretty damn well for a 50-year old.


SIVAJI THE BOSS is a great film for anyone who has fantasized of a really honest politician or philanthropist taking the law in his own hands to help one's own nation. It's a wacky cheesy Bollywood film of course, so you should know what to expect for anyone who has ever seen a Bollywood flick.


The DVD is a UK Tamil ALL-REGION NTSC 3-Disc DVD produced by Ayngaran.
Disc 1 has the movie in DTS Tamil, English subtitled.
Disc 2 has the movie in DD 5.1 Tamil, English subtitled.
Disc 3 has just two extras, non-English subtitled.

The anamorphic video quality of the is pretty damn nice. Some knicks and scratches pop up througout the film, because India ain't known for quality. But other than that, it's a colorful film well-represented on DVD.

The original audio, Tami, DD 5.1 and DTS, are both pretty good. Surrounds and subwoofer are pretty active all throughout the film. The film will most likely be dubbed into Hindi and be released on Hindi DVD.

The extras are just two featurettes - one's a 2-hour long conference with the actors and filmmakers. And the other is a 30-minute making of the film. Both featurettes are NOT SUBTITLED.

If you are in the USA, a cheap and quick online store to find this DVD is at www.bhavanidvd.com

FILM: 8.5
DVD VIDEO: 8
DVD AUDIO: 8
EXTRAS: 2

Last edited by toddly6666; 04-12-08 at 04:27 PM.
Old 04-12-08, 09:50 PM
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Hey toddly, your reviews are always an entertaining read. And, more generally speaking, I appreciate your consisent contributions to this forum. Given how much you were anticipating this film, I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.

A couple of things...are you sure about that budget you mentioned - 100 million - or is it a typo? India has never done anything that big. From my understanding the budget for SIVAJI was more in the range of 12-15 million U.S. That would put it around the level of KRRISH. Even that mega-budget Bollywood flick DRONA that I mentioned to you once, is probably going to come in at just over 15 million. Also, why'd you call it "Bollywood", you know it's a Tamil film so "Kollywood". Anyway mate, please don't think I'm nitpicking as that isn't my intended tone. We run into each other so often around here I consider you a friend, so my tone is meant to be casual...just two guys talking.

Before I share my take on the movie, a sad note, the actor - Raghuvaran - who plays the doctor in the film died about three weeks ago...it was a heart attack....I recall seeing his work in other films...too bad.

Sivaji (Tamil - 2007)

Now for the movie, I'm a little surprised you were so high on it. We both liked ANNIYAN quite a bit, but I thought this was more than a couple of grades below ANNIYAN. I'm more in-line with DVDTalker InnocentBlood's comments in your other SIVAJI thread. SIVAJI was certainly watchable for me and enjoyable enough, but in comparison to ANNIYAN, it is a big drop-off.

To start off, the fact that they go out of their way to explain to the audience what CPR is, sort of lets you know where your expectation level should be. The storyline is the typical - especially South Indian - storyline of some ordinary joe-type standing up to evil politician/businessman/police/etc. Rajnikanth was fine in the lead but he is no Vikram (the guy from ANNIYAN). The female lead Shriya is pretty much a carbon copy of the girl in ANNIYAN, which is definitely a good thing as they both light up the screen. The romantic chemistry between the two was non-existent...with Rajnikanth looking way too old. As far as the songs, the visual presentation was spectacular, especially that sort of Antonio Banderas/Salma Hayek DESPERADO-ish number. But the music, while good, didn't - for me - match the soundtrack of ANNIYAN which - to me - had three spectacular songs. The action scenes delivered what I expected - again THE MATRIX - but the one in the music shop was certainly visually interesting because of the environment. I don't think any of the action in SIVAJI matched the dojo fight in ANNIYAN. My big problem with SIVAJI is the mix of action/comedy/romance/music. ANNIYAN was expertly balanced switching regularly and seamlessly from one to the other; the action was solid, the comedy was funny, the romance was believable, the music was great. In SIVAJI, the balance is just not there. The runtime is 3 hours and 8 minutes. The first 90 minutes is predominantly romance and comedy nearer the silly variety. The forward momentum to the main plotline of Rajnikanth's versus those in power just isn't there, and only picks up speed in the second half. In general, I just didn't find myself caught up in the plight of our protagonist Rajnikanth. Also I didn't find the villain particularly compelling...he was more or less your standard, run-of-the-mill villain. Pretty much anything that is of excellence in SIVAJI I can attribute to its high budget, but when you boil it down to characters and story, I actually didn't find it any better than a couple of Telugu films I've commented upon recently, actually as far as plot and characters I likely preferred the last two Telugu films I reviewed. Like I said, SIVAJI was a fine enough viewing for me - especially because the budget allowed for some grand presentations such as the songs and the music room fight scene, and the demolition derby you mentioned (though it didn't really excite me). I'd grade it out as average, innocuous, and enjoyable...but no way near the standard of ANNIYAN, and in ways that matter to me, not too distinguishable from any other South Indian film of this genre. Actually, if I remember right the climactic fights in both SIVAJI and SAINIKUDU share a small portion of commonality...sort of a sense of deja vu if you watch both back-to-back. Anyway, I sincerely appreciate having someone to talk Indian cinema with. We might not always agree (KRISSH, DHOOM 2), but there's no harm in that. And for readers, it is always good to have multiple takes on a film.

So toddly, I guess the next we have to look forward to is this Summer's big-budget, Bollywood, sci-fi film LOVE STORY 2050...it stars Priyanka Chopra and features the debut of Harman Baweja (who just so happens to be the son of the film's director Harry Baweja). Here's a youtube teaser clip:
LOVE STORY 2050 - Bollywod sci-fi - coming this Summer
Old 04-13-08, 12:00 AM
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FLIXTIME,

I had no idea that they had a special name for tamilwood films - Kollywood. What does it mean?

According to wikipedia, the film cost around 90 crores? How many dollars is that worth? I think I got the wrong conversion.

I liked Anniyan too, but I thought Sivaji had the better story and more original action than Anniyan. The dojo fight scene in Anniyan has been seen so many times in HK films - it was just impressive for the time. Here in Sivaji, the fight scenes are much more creative. Anniyan is a much dark film anyway, so it's sort of hard to compare the two besides the fact that both films are directed by Shankar and both feature awesome fight scenes for an Indian film.

I'm going to have to disagree with you with the comments you made about romance, love, chemistry, etc. about both films. There is no such thing as believable romance male-female chemistry in Bollywood/Kollywood films. (I've seen one film, the tamil film - A Peck On the Cheek - that had sort of normal male-female relations, but that film borders on art film, and not the usual mainstream type bollywood/kollywood). In both Sivaji and Anniyan, the main leads are freaking stalkers, and Anniyan is by far the more creepy one. Bollywood films are famous for being films focusing on love, but far, far, far from showing believable romance.

Your comments on Sivaji pertain to most Bollywood films. You have to remember that these films are seriously curved when comparing to other country standards - story, acting, dialogue - all curved in Bollywood. There is no such thing as a Bollywood film actually being really good. Even the oscar-nominated Laagan is an overrated, too long, boring and cheesy film.

There is the possibility of good Indian actors that are in constant bad movies, because Bollywood is known for making poor quality films. But honestly, I bet the majority of the Bollywood stars are pretty awful actors and couldn't make it in Western flicks. Ash Rai is pretty bad in her western flicks. I like Hrithik but he's a bit of an overactor. Sharukh Khan and Amitabh Bakran are cartoon characters. The only actor in Bollywood that should be doing Western films is Sanjay Dutt. He's the only natural actor that doesn't force cool to be cool. He is the Jean Reno of India, but also the only good actor. Most of these Indian pretty boy lead actors are so amateurish. There is no way of hiding that they are still nerds, not cool, flamboyant, like themselves more than their leading ladies. There is nothing more embarrassing than watching the flirtation scenes in Bollywood films, especially when you can tell that the director is telling their actors to laugh at each other's non-witty, non-funny jokes. Watching Bollywood leading men actors is the equivalent of watching Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton in a James Bond film. Brosnan and Dalton weren't great Bonds because they always seem like they are aware that they are in a James Bond movie. Connery and Craig are good Bonds because they are not thinking about how Bond is supposed to act, they are just both naturally cool and tough.

But anway, here are my favorite Bollywood action movie rankings now:

1. Mission Kashmir
2. Sivaji
3. Dhoom 2
4. Anniyan
5. Krrish
6. The Hero: Love Story of a Spy
7. Dhoom


Flixtime, thanks for the heads up with LOVE STORY 2050, that looks awesome as well. I'm looking forward to seeing it. The only laughable thing in that trailer is that they make Mumbai futuristic in year 2050. 2050 is too soon and there is no way that India will ever look like Tokyo. They should have changed the titled to LOVE STORY 2210.
Old 04-13-08, 09:02 AM
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"Kollywood" used for Tamil cinema is because the first letter of the area where most Tamil films are shot begins with the letter "K". Telugu cinema is sometimes called "Tollywood". Pakistan is "Lollywood", with "L" coming from the city Lahore.

As to the budget for SIVAJI. You mention 90 crores list at wikipedia. Personally, I'd challenge that high a figure as an artificially inflated number. For the production budget, I could maybe talk myself into accepting as high as 70 crores but no more. No matter. For conversion purposes, roughly speaking, 4 crore = 1 million U.S., so to indulge and accept that 90 crore figure, we would get a 22.5 million dollar U.S. budget for SIVAJI.

Thanks for expanding on your SIVAJI comments; I can better see your mindset now. Actually I have to head out for a while now, but I'll check back in later tonight or tomorrow to talk a little more SIVAJI with you (and hopefully others)...and also your comments as to the abilities of Indian actors are interesting and in a way lead to something I've wondered about in relation to the Indian film industry.
Old 04-17-08, 01:07 AM
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I guess if you were to look at Sivaji purely as a pulp entertainer then yeah it does deliver the goods. The reason behind my disappointment with this colossal movie was that from the moment of its inception and all the way through its highly secretive production and immense theatrical release, it was touted as something that was much, much bigger than a pulpy entertainer for the masses.

No doubt nobody expected it to be a work of ‘art’ that was going to garner Oscar nominations but based purely on the fact that this was a Shankar movie then you can simply expect something ‘more’. Just like how can you can expect something ‘more’ out of a Mani Ratnam movie or from a Kamal Haaasan movie – especially when the latter is doing one of his more ‘serious’ roles or performing something genre defining. You just know that this is something that’s going down in the annals of Tamil cinema as one of the most memorable movies ever made. It’s supposed to set a STANDARD. Shankar’s movies can be said to be like that for he is truly one of the directors who makes a movie stand out and by watching it you know that it’s got to be a Shankar movie – pretty much the same that you feel when you watch a Mani Ratnam movie. It’s just so visually arresting with an original and interesting plotline.

In the case of Sivaji I honestly felt that it was a matter of Style Over Substance. This can be said of most of the male lead’s output ever since he was christened the Super Star – his movies are all about style and very little else. There’s even a song titled Style in this very movie celebrating his ‘coolness’.

So when it was announced that Rajini would be making a movie with Shankar, I was honestly hoping another ground breaking movie like Thalapthi – the epic that was borne out of the legendary collaboration between Mani Ratnam and Rajini. IMHO, this was the last time that Rajini put in a thoroughly riveting performance sans any of his exaggerated coolness. This was a hark back to his early career when he showed that he could really act without having to strut, swagger and preen for the camera. This was before his ‘angry youth out for revenge’ movies made during the 80s.

But instead in Sivaji what you get are flashy visuals and little much of else. The visuals in this movie are most memorable during the songs scenes. You can see that a lot of the money was poured into the massive sets and I am really looking forward to experiencing this on the DVD or Blu Ray. Another hallmark of a Shankar movie is how beautiful and appealing he can make his female leads look on camera. They come across as absolutely ravishing especially in the colorful song sequences. In Sivaji, I felt that Shreya looked drop dead gorgeous in the ‘Vaaji Vaaji’ song.

The special effects are a joke – a bald Rajini is simply a novelty and the ‘Matrix bullet time’ sfx simply can’t be pulled off to good effect in Tamil cinema – they just can’t cut it but kudos to Shankar for trying anyway.

Shankar is set to direct Rajini again in another mega project called ‘Robot’, if you believe the online rumors. This is Shankar’s magnum opus – a movie that he has been dreaming to make all his career, it seems.

I sincerely hope that when Robot does get made and released, it will be a Shankar movie rather than a star vehicle for Rajini.
Old 04-17-08, 10:21 AM
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Innocent Blood, so it looks like you had high expectations for Sivaji...sorry about the disappointment.

This is the way I see Bollywood/Kollywood/Tollywood/or whatever other names they call these Indian blockbuster films: "There is no reason for a Bollywood film to be good." Why would the Bollywood industry use good writers from abroad? Why would they make a professional quality film? Why would the romance be realistic? Why would the actors be good? There is absolutely no reason for a Bollywood film to be good, because India is a sloppy, messy, low-quality product nation. There is just no reason to make a really good well-balanced blockbuster movie. When I watch a non-Indian film, "There is no reason for the film to be bad." The non-Indian film industry (the rest of the world) have every reason to find good writers, good actors, good cinematraphers, etc. When I see a really bad American movie, I think why did they even think of making this film? When I see a really bad Bollywood movie, I think nothing of it because it's normal for the industry to make them.

Now there are of course a few Indian directors who make good Bollywood movies, such as Mani Ratnam and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who I get the high expectations for because they have the potential to make a good well-balanced Bollywood blockbuster.
Old 04-28-08, 12:59 AM
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Last weekend, I watched Sivaji on DVD – I watched the version of the movie with the DTS track. As expected, the PQ and SQ were pretty good. The DVD is definitely much better looking than the VCD the image quality is pretty consistent – I did not notice any pixilation and the picture was vibrant and colorful. The surrounds come into effect when the songs kick in and you might want to crank up the audio when the music starts as the songs sound great on this DVD.

The song sequences really stood out for me – the loads of money poured into the sets just to film the song sequences were beautifully reproduced on screen and you can see this clearly on the DVD. The images are breathtakingly beautiful and striking. Nayantara looks fantastic in her song sequence and Shreya looks absolutely gorgeous in the Vaaji Vaaji song. I love the way this girl sways her hips

No point talking about the movie itself – in a nutshell , it’s a missed opportunity. A Herculean demonstration of style over substance where the core audience will definitely be watching over and over again for years to come.

I do admit that I get a certain kick out of the fight scenes. It’s very silly but very fun at the same time too to see Rajini beat the shit out of the baddies especially when he is one man against an army of them. Just leave your sense of logic at the door

The scenes where I really enjoyed were the comedy scenes. For all of his preening and posturing and exaggerated mannerisms, Rajini has a wonder sense of comedy and when he is by himself or paired with a comic sidekick what you get is truly very funny whereby just thinking of the scenes, it will get you laughing. In that sense, the comedy scenes in Sivaji are absolutely delightful.

Also, I thought that upon a second viewing, the scenes where the bald Rajini is in were pretty good. I’m not referring to the fight scenes as they are pretty hokey. I’m referring to the demented glint in his eyes when he goes to confront his adversary to seek revenge. Those scenes reminded me of the time when Rajini used to play anti-hero characters. My favorite parts of Chandramukhi were those where he appears as the evil king That aspect of Rajini is fascinating to watch.

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