(No matter where you are right now, no matter how old you are, I am sure you always have your favorite old songs by these dynamic duo that you don’t mind humming the whole day long. Image source: Silverscreen India)
Despite “starting off” with the music of Illayaraja and later discovering the new age music of A R Rahman and then Yuvan Shankar Raja, Harris and all the new music directors, I always had soft spot for the music from the 1960s and 1970s in particular songs composed by MS Viswanathan – Ramamoorthy (MSV) and penned by the great poet Kannadasan (I also liked songs composed by KV Mahadevan and AM Raja).
(The many faces of the great man in multiple roles all these years and he still making headlines even now. Image source: http://www.bollywoodlife.com)
In terms of acting, after the great Sivaji Ganesan, we were lucky to have Kamal Haasan taking up the lead when it comes to powerful acting. And over the years, he has not let us down with powerful storyline and acting (still remember this?).
Western classical music is perspective – look at the number of people involved in a symphony! Our traditional music is lonely – Ilaiyaraja
(My collection cover image – the image of Maestro Ilaiyaraja. Image source: http://www.tamilkey.com)
As long I could remember, I have been listening to Ilaiyaraja music since I was still young and started to have an appreciation of his style of music – all the way from the 1970s (you are aware that Annakili was not his first movie and that he had to impress the producer Panchu Arunachalam by singing a song that his mother sang and using the table as an music instrument?) to his latest flick in “Neethane En Ponvasantham” – thanks to my Dad who was big fan of Ilaiyaraja (Ilaiyaraja means the “younger” Raja – that is because the Tamil music industry already had another music director named Raja – the famed A.M. Raja).
It suppose to be a quick post on Shankar’s Nanban but I ended up writing more especially after yesterday I watched again the well made 3 Idiots
(The guy on the far right – your right – seems better than the rest. Trust me, you will be safer watching the original 3 Idiots than the “new” idiots in Nanban – they are nowhere close to the beauty of story-telling and acting in 3 Idiots. Poster source: Indiaglitz)
First things first. Let’s not compare ‘3 Idiots’ with ‘Nanban’. Though the latter is a faithful remake of the Aamir Khan starrer, ‘Nanban’ has its own moments.
It carries a nice theme presented in an interesting way. It drives home the point that one shouldn’t run behind success and rather pursue his/her own interests. If one develops right skill anything is possible.
I guess they are just trying to be nice here and nothing more. I agree – perhaps Nanban would have made more sense and entertaining if you have not watched 3 Idiots in the first place. This post however will make more sense for those who have. Indiaglitz asks us not compare ‘3 Idiots’ with ‘Nanban’ but how we could not do that? It is almost 100% remake of 3 Idiots in many ways including many of the dialogues, settings and characters.
And if you are intending to watch this latest Tamil flick, I strongly suggest you not waste your time and money watching it. Despite the big names in the acting roles and film-making (Enthiran’s Shankar being the director here) and having copied almost 100% of 3 Idiots which was released in 2009, this remake in Tamil sucks big time. Don’t get me wrong – those acted in this movie is highly talented in their own standing but coming together in a remake of the 3 Idiots, something did not just click right.
It is missing the fire that we saw in 3 Idiots.
Comparing the two movies side by side, you will be better off watching the more original, the more entertaining and more believable 3 Idiots starring Aamir Khan. Take the main character – Aamir Khan is like thousand times better than Vijay in the same role (so does all others). You can see a glimpse of hidden intelligence when you see Rancho the first time in 3 Idiots but you see nothing (despite trying very, very hard) when you see Pari in Nanban.
Nothing seemed natural here – Vijay seemed to be trying very hard to be that innocent but brilliant student who changes the life of his 2 friends. All the actors in Nanban seemed to be trying hard to follow the same style of the actors in 3 Idiots but do not achieve the same fluid. You don’t feel the same agony even after Jeeva’s character jumps from the top floor of the university. And once that key characters in the movie is ruined, you can kiss the whole movie good-bye as well.
(Who is the better “virus”? Boman Irani was a class better than Sathyaraj in the same role. Image source: https://cinemovika.blogspot.com)
Even the well talented Sathyaraj seemed to have wasted his energy and time here as well (you want to see Sathyaraj in his elements? Watch Kannamoochi Yenada and you will see why I say that he has wasted his energy and time here).
The award winning Boman Irani who acted in same role (as the much hated “virus”) in 3 Idiots have done his role just too well – In 3 Idiots, it was a clear fight between the 3 idiots and the virus but here in Nanban, Sathyaraj hardly come close and ends up playing a very minor role.
Perhaps the film makers with all that talent and resources at their disposal should have done something different that sets Nanban apart from 3 Idiots. Perhaps the film makers should have localized Nanban to more South Indian settings (yes, they tried but it was not enough – speaking in Tamil instead of Hindi does not really count) – perhaps even dropping “All is Well” to something more localized in Tamil.
The only saving grace in Nanban is Harris Jayaraj’s music – it is good to be heard on its own although you need to forget that it was made for Nanban (if you do that, 1 + 1 ends as something else and not 2). My favourite would be Irukkaannaa – nice touch of the various background instruments by Harris.
I have seen 3 Idiots several times before and I still love it but Nanban, despite a “brave” attempt to rekindle the magic that 3 Idiots did, failed miserably in almost every department. It’s sad because we were expecting something better and entertaining from the famed Shankar. If you want to watch any recent movie that is far better than Nanban, I suggest instead you watch Porali – starring M. Sasikumar.
This was one of the most waited movies in my list for 2011!
(One of the best scenes in the movie – Cheran facing off the criminals with just a small knife on a bridge. One to one and almost immediate – no stupid scenes like one hero flying or punching 20 guys at one go. Image source: Indiaglitz)
Sometimes, we can determine a good movie upfront by seeing who is the director of the movie – throw some names like Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and in Tamil movie scene, Shankar (although he screwed up his last movie), Mani Ratnam, Gautham Menon and many more up into the air and you can be assured that you going to see a movie that is not only entertaining but well made and with the right storyline.
One such director that have been consistently been churning out “must watch” Tamil movies in recent times is Mysskin. In the last 5 years, he only made 4 movies – Chithiram Pesuthadi in 2006 (still remember the “fish” song?), then one of the best, Anjathey in 2008 and did one personal movie for himself titled Nandhalala in 2010 and now we have Yuddham Sei in 2011.
There is a good reason why Yuddham Sei is also known as Anjathey 2 – quality and well-directed storyline continue to ooze from Mysskin’s magical hands.
The synopsis
From Wikipedia:-
The film starts with a brooding CB-CID officer J.K. who is worried about his missing sister. His senior officer promises J.K. that he can take up his sister’s case after he solves another one, so J.K. agrees. Amputated male arms are packed in cartons and left in public places. J.K. suspects that they are done so deliberately, as a message to the police. Based on identification from families of missing persons, they find that the arms belong to Raja Manikam, Moorthy et cetera. By triangulating the co-ordinates they find a lead in this case.
Durai Pandi is a leading textile shop owner who was beaten and insulted in public and handed over to the police after it was found that he had used a peephole to look into the dressing room for women. He is caught by the victim Suja’s family, who are totally shattered by this incident. The inspector in-charge of this case is Isakki Muthu. Later, Durai Pandi’s manager surrenders to the police accepting the charge of the crime, and thus clearing Durai Pandi’s name.
Later, Suja’s father Dr. Purushothaman was arrested on charges of bribery, and later released. A sex affair complaint was lodged against Dr. Purushothaman’s wife. These events shatter the family, and they suicide by setting themselves on fire. But Suja is still missing, so J.K. decides to reopen Dr. Purushothaman’s case.
(There is “dirt” in this police station – Cheran facing off a dirty cop who is part of the criminal gang involved in the kidnapping of young girls. Image source: Indiaglitz)
The storyline
Very similar with Anjathey with a little twist here and there but the ending was something that was not expected. Many slammed Mysskin for using similar plot with Anjathey for this movie. Yes, admittedly it is indeed similar but what is more important is how it is presented to the audience – in the past, we have seen remakes of older movies but not all turned out to be well). In that sense, Mysskin maintains his grip on quality and good story-telling to be better or in par with Anjathey.
So, what we have in Yuddham Sei? In this movie, there are 4 groups of characters with 4 subplots twisted together as one big plot in this movie and it was well presented by Mysskin:-
1. There is the story of a brother looking for his missing sister – JK, the main character well played by Cheran is a police detective who had to content with investigating gruesome murders in the city whilst investigating the disappearance of his sister (In Anjathey, Sathyanathan investigates the kidnapping of young girls whilst had to content with his good friend turning to the “dark side” of life)
2. There is the story of the police who seems to be at loss with finding of human parts in a box, left in the public areas around the city. Mysskin was careful to show the details of the police investigations, the frustrations and the pressure from the police chief and politicians and the public to get the people who been cutting up the victims (Same thing in Anjathey – one of the best scenes there was when Sathyanathan asks the IGP to investigate when he was asked to get out from the room. In Yuddham Sei, IGP is a much cooler head than in Anjathey but no less, keeps up the pressure on his men to solve the case fast)
3. There is the story of a criminal gang who kidnaps young women for sexual purposes and portrays the act to a group of old wealthy men who pay good money (Similar in Anjathey where young girls get kidnapped for ransom)
And then
4. There is the dark story of revenge – something that is not noticed until it is explained in the second part of the story. Revenge is indeed sweet.
The camera angle
Similarly in Anjathey, camera angle of the various scenes remains perfectly executed. Sathya handled the camera but you can feel Mysskin’s artistry all over the place. Scenes like the back shot of JK as he is pondering his next move as he in a vehicle traveling towards for a police operation, the fight scene at the over head bridge – one of the fights is shown upside with the criminal shown running in the background, the dead girl lying on the dining table surrounded by her family members and of course, the classic trademark ground level shots.
Creative camera shots making story telling even more compelling – coupled with well timed background music and that gives a whole new meaning to thrillers.
(I love the camera angles in this movie – Cheran sitting down at the spot where his sister was kidnapped, contemplating on how to find her. Image source: Indiaglitz)
The acting
The key person in this story is Cheran – we all have seen his fine acting (and direction) in Autograph and Thavamai Thavamirundhu but this is first time, we are seeing him in the role of a policeman, out to solve 2 cases at the same time. Acting is fine but perhaps we are seeing Cheran in a totally new role, initially we are unable to erase Cheran from his other roles that he had played in the past but as the movie picks up pace, we start to believe that Cheran is one tough cop and he is just one of us when faced with tough calls.
Another twist in the line of actors in this movie is YG. Mahendra – the actor from the often played funny roles in movies in 1980s and lately involved in TV serials. Lakshmi Ramakrishnan who plays his wife in this movie excels as well in her role.
The music
Background music in Yuddham Sei picks where Anjathey had left off – not much song scenes but plenty of heart-stopping background music for the tense moments in the movie. Mysskin seems to favor violin based music – we found it in Anjathey and we loved it alot and now we can find it in abundant in Yuddham Sei. I managed to get hold of Yuddham Sei’s soundtrack – the music alone is worth listening on its own.
Final say
The plus points: The direction (It’s Mysskin man, what else you need?), camera work, music and acting (Cheran did one fine work here)
The negative points: The storyline (Damn! It looks identical to Anjathey but it highly, highly acceptable)
Veteran singer and actor Malaysia Vasudevan died in a private hospital in Chennai, Tamil Nadu yesterday. The 66-year-old Malaysian-born is survived by his son Yugendran and daughter Prashanthini, who are also playback singers. Vasudevan was admitted to the hospital a couple of days ago after a cardiac arrest.
He left for India to find a career in Tamil movie world several decades ago before getting a major break in the movie, 16 Vayathiniley in which the song Aattukutti Muttaiyittu became a hit.
Vasudevan who received a Kalaimamani award from the Tamil Nadu government several years ago, has sung more than 8,000 songs in different languages, including 4,000 songs in Tamil. He has also produced movies and has acted in about 85 movies.
The first time I heard M.V was in the movie “Kizakke Pogum Rail” where he sang the song “Kovil Mani Oosai”. He was in par with the other great singer from the 70s, 80s – SP. Bala (some even say he was better) and went one step ahead – he was also a good actor too – acting the villain in the 1980s movies.
I know, I know…this review is more than a month old late!
(I know there was trouble when I saw a “Borg cube” at the opening credit of the movie. Poster source: Wikipedia)
Before I start with the review, let me tell you upfront that we have been duped, major time, by Shankar and the studio marketers (ya, they did a good job with that) with the whole hype before the movie was released. I keep asking myself – is this the movie that Shankar been thinking for the last 10 years of doing ? The movie that now holds the title as the most expensive Indian movie to be made (approximately USD40 million) and unbelievably the second highest grossing Indian movie of all time (thank God, 3 Idiots are still holding the top place to save grace).
My son have been asking me to take him to see the movie even before the movie was released in Malaysia (he have seen the trailers and he knows who is Rajini). I told him to do well in the exams and I promised to take him to see the movie (I would have taken him no matter what the exam results was but I wanted to buy time and I had to fly overseas for some work). So when I came back, he reminded me (and he got good marks in the exam) and I immediately book our seats on an almost empty cinema hall. Good thing was I went to see it after the ticket price got cheaper and I did not had to tussle with others for a good seat.
(The place where the song Kadhal Anukal was shot – the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park. Couple the background with great music and you have magic moments in a movie. Image source: http://www.touristspots.org)
The Good
So, let me quickly tell you upfront what is good about this movie:-
1. Art and background during song scenes – the best is for the movie, Kilimanjaro. Good use of the Mayan era costumes and beautiful dancers. The picturisation of the opening song, Kadhal Anukal is also good – deserts with crystal blue patches of water (damn, where did they find these places?).
2. Music – As usual, I hated AR Rahman’s music at the beginning but listen to it a couple of times, it ends as your top of list music for your MP3 player. There are plenty of techno like and scientific kind of lyrics to put the music closer to the theme of the movie. You need patience and time to listen to AR Rahman music, otherwise you will hate them the first time you listen to it. My top pick – Kadhal Anukal, Kilimanjaro and Arima Arima (good use of marching drums and Ash looks stunning in pink).
3. CGI – Seeing many “Mat Salleh” names on the opening credit was not a big surprise. Hollywood technicians are at a class of their own with CGIs and SFXs. The last fight by Chitti 2.0 was a good, a bit over done but refreshing one (why didn’t those robots in Will Smith’s I, Robot did not think of that when wanted to defend themselves from the human).
4. Ash & Rajini – a colleague of mind said that it is like the “Beauty and the Beast” but seeing it in the cinema and despite Rajini is old and Ash is an ex-Miss World, there is certain chemistry between the two. Rajini (thanks to skilled make up artists) looks young and good. Ash is able to conquer the scenes with her own beauty. Rajini acted well for both the parts of Dr Vaseegaran and Chitti – no wonder he is called the Super Star. Chitti 2.0 is the best character in the whole movie.
5. Fight scene in the train – with such a confined area and too many “baddies”, stunt masters Peter Hein, Yuen Woo Ping and Alex Martin pulled it off rather beautifully. It reminded me of the epic fight between Neo and many of the rouge formerly known as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy.
(Chitti 2.0 is evil but it was my favorite – Rajini acted the character almost flawlessly. Image source: www.indiaglitz.com/tamil/)
The Bad & Ugly
End of good things, now, let’s talk about the bad things of this movie:-
1. Logic of storyline – The biggest letdown in Shankar’s Enthiran and it shows bare chested after the second half of the movie (as if Shankar spent all those years – 10 years – only thinking about the first half, got lost thinking about the second half and decided to fall back to the typical Bollywood kind of story telling).
In fact, IMDB quote “however, in October 2007, Khan commented that the script was “half-baked” and “dull” in comparison to his other films at the time” and one review website said “Shankar’s obsession with visual creativity overtakes logic and reason to the point that towards the end, the extravaganza on screen totally stops making sense”whilst another says “the climax is definitely a sure-fire way to lose your sanity”.
Let me illustrate couple of examples:-
a. When Chitti kidnaps Sana and that got the whole of TPD (yeah, the Tamil Police Department) coming after them with all it’s might. I was surprised when I noticed that the TPD starts shooting at the car that Chitti and Sana is in. Countless of bullet holes on the car (and it is a convertible and is not a bullet proof car) and nothing happens to Sana (forget about Chitti, he may have internal body armor but Sana?).
b. When a clone of Chitti hijacks a oil tanker and is running away from TPD, the commander will ask the rest to fall back, stating that it will be dealt by the Coast Guard. At that point, I had expected a heavily armored gunship to appear at the scene but once again, Shankar decided to make a fool of himself – a lonely civilian helicopter with a missile launched (hello friend, I don’t see any missile launcher on the helicopter!)
c. One man show – the hero and the villain who work on their respective robot projects is doing on their own (never mind the 2 idiotic assistants that Dr Vaseegaran has in his lab – they look more like the tea boy and the toilet washer to me). Now compare to the real work by real scientists– almost everyone works as team and to build a humanoid that is almost talks and acts like a human, you going to need an army of scientists with many different skills and specialties (even in Dasavathaaram, Kamal is working with a big team on the killer virus in a proper lab). No, I guess since it is a Bollywood movie; the Super Star can do everything by himself.
d. Army evaluation. I am pretty sure that when the Army want to test a new weapon or something that can kill the enemy, they will make sure it is tested in a proper lab or in a proper testing ground and with the evaluators and the top Generals far away from the test grounds. Not in Shankar’s Enthiran! Top generals sits right in front of Chitti who is sitting in front of a table full of weapons and the whole testing is done in an army training camp with new recruits in the background. What happens if Chitti goes haywire (it did once when it tried to kill the maker) and decides to throw a grenade towards the generals or the new recruits, just for fun?
e. The mayhem in the end where it seems the whole police and military in Tamil Nadu is trying to take out one crazy robot. Where is the tactics, man? In the movie, Shankar gets the men in arms to surround the Chitti clones and starts shooting at it. Then Shankar decides to be “brilliant” – he gets 2 gunships (finally a proper gunship helicopters!) and starts them to shoot down – right at where the police and the army on the grounds are busy fighting. I predicted half of the men dead on the ground was killed by the gunship helicopter. It is obvious that Shankar need to watch more of Hollywood’s war movies to understand how the military really operates. They operate on well defined tactics and proper teamwork.
2. Unnecessary scenes – instead of giving an intense film and keep us engrossed, Shankar fills up with unnecessary scenes – perhaps he did not know what to do. The scene involving the mosquitoes and Chitti 1.0 is one good example. Another is where Sana tries to make her boyfriend jealous and distracted by trying to make friend with a drunken villager.
3. Where is the underlying story? One good thing I liked on Shankar’s past movies has been the call for Indians to be better and make India a better place – evident in Anniyan and Mudhalvan which deals with corruption and dirty politics. But here in Enthiran, Dr Vaseegaran spends 10 years of his research on a robot for the Army – a weapon of mass destruction as we see later in the climax but that’s about it. When his mentor, Dr Bohra rejects the application by Dr Vaseegaran for the very fact that Chitti goes haywire (defies the 3 laws of robotics – made famous in I, Robot) and tries to kill Dr Vaseegaran, surprisingly Dr Vaseegaran gets upsets and protests profusely (you mean Dr Vaseegaran rather be dead than get his application rejected? What is the underlying message by Shankar here?)
(Clones of Chitti 2.0 charging up – Enthiran was no doubt ground breaking but Shankar had to go and messed up the storyline. Image source: http://www.southdreamz.com)
Final say
The plus points: Music & picturisation, Chitti 2.0 and camera work
As you all know Rajini’s latest movie – Enthiran has been released (read the seedy review here).
It has been said that this is one of the most expensive movie to be produced by the Indians. And due to this and to the main actor’s die hard fans, there seems to be a dedicated effort to stamp out piracy. After all, in the age of Internet, broadband, torrents, file sharing sites and plenty of cheap external hard space, watching the latest movie in crystal clear copy is not something hard to get.
Remember several years ago when the pirates (in good old Malaysia) even “release” Steven Spielberg’s movie in night markets even before the movie was completed? So, with this expensive movie, the producers must be biting their nails to get back their huge investments with a loadful profit too and free downloads (whilst may not stop genuine movie goers from watching it in the cinemas) may create small dent on their profit margin.
So, the fans (and probably the producers) came up with a brilliant idea – to report those links that is providing illegal downloads and to block and stop the download. And they have been successful to some extent – the more established file sharing sites like Rapidshare and Megaupload have taken note and have taken the files out from their servers. But the pirates have enough sites from where they can host the files and open up for download.
But here is best joke of all – the links from where the pirates are hosting the illegal files are being identified and kind of “promoted” by…..the very fans who wanted to report them and stop the illegal downloads (although some sites have managed to cover this loophole after the initial blunder). Talk about irony of things!
P.s. as for me, I am waiting for at least a month before watching the movie in cinema (to get best seats without the crowd) unless my son get the better of me and get me to get the tickets early….
(The main characters in the movie – Image source: http://nowrunning.com)
I used to hate Tamil movies…
Ya, they had great music and if you throw in Sivaji Ganesan and Kamalahasan, great acting too but one thing I hated the most was the storyline. There is no logic explanation on how one hero can take on 20 or so armed gangsters and still come out alive or how a very beautiful girl from a very rich family loves a hardcore gangster from the slum on the very first day.
But in recent times, Tamil movie makers seems to have rediscovered something that been missing for a long time now in the industry – a sensible and logic storyline – a point that was well made when I saw Pandiraj directed, Sasikumar produced, award winning Pasanga. That movie simply blew me away with its simplicity and one of the best storyline involving children.
The Plot
The story starts with a group of men going to the police station to complain about 3 young boys who been creating havoc in their village. One of them, Jeeva is also the son of a strict teacher in the local school, Nithyanandam. Life becomes a nightmare for Jeeva when Anbu’s father (Anbu is the hero in this movie) decided to move out from their old village and moves to the house opposite of Nithyanandam’s house.
On the very first day, Anbu gets into a fight with Jeeva who earlier had intended to bully Anbu. Anbu finds himself in the same class with Jeeva and where the teacher is none other Nithyanandam. Anbu who is kind hearted, strive to befriend Jeeva but Jeeva, angry with Anbu’s success just wanted to get even with Anbu (how he does it is funny too). Without realizing the impact of the fight with Anbu, Jeeva slowly changes – he started to dress well and improves on his studies (with intent to outsmart Anbu in studies), to much delight of his father / teacher, Nithyanandam. However, the fight between Anbu and Jeeva eventually spills over to a fight between the two families with Jeeva’s father intend in chasing away Anbu’s family from the rented house facing his house.
Interwined with the main story of Anbu & Jeeva, is 2 other stories – Anbu’s uncle relationship with Jeeva’s elder sister and the fight between Anbu’s parents. The turning point comes when Anbu’s parents fight gets worse and Anbu’s mother asks for a divorce. The fight is overheard by Jeeva who spreads it at school; with intend to embarrass Anbu to the maximum. Both Jeeva’s and Anbu’s fathers decided to talk things over and things starts to improve for both family (Anbu’s uncle even gets engaged with Jeeva’s elder sister) but the fight between Anbu and Jeeva did not let down until Anbu meets with a tragic accident.
Storyline
The story is pretty simple – it is nothing that we are not unfamiliar with in real life (and movies) but at the end of the day, what we need to ask is whether there is a lesson to be learned after watching the movie. Yes, movies are nothing but a mode of entertainment but if it is packed with the right message, movies can be a very powerful medium for betterment of life.
Acting
On the onset, the premise has been set that the main characters in this movie would be the children. The adults in the movie play the supporting role. And despite having a heavy role to play, the children excelled in their acting, so much so you would think that there is a real fight between Anbu and Jeeva.
One of the interesting things that were portrayed in this movie is the children’s imagination. Anbu imagine himself as a self-defence expert, someone driving a car or as someone who is riding a brand new motorcycle. I still recall myself imagining driving a bus (Toong Fong bus in particular) when I was still small and was staying in my grandma’s house.
My pick – Anbaale Azhagagum Veedu (sang by veteran singer, Dr. Balamuralikrishna) is simply brilliant – both in lyrics and in picturisation. It comes in after Anbu’s parents reconciled and things started to get better for both Anbu and Jeeva (other than their fight, of course).
One of the heartening moments in the song is where Anbu’s father would be outside a shop and sees his son running to the school, imagining that he is riding a motorbike. Anbu’s father decides to buy a bicycle for Anbu, making his wish to come true and making him in par with Jeeva who already had bicycle and been teasing Anbu on this.
The background music especially the violin is well deployed at the right time – like when Anbu is being teased in the classroom by Jeeva on the fight between Anbu’s father and mother – we share the pain faced by Anbu.
Final say
The plus points: Storyline, acting and music (especially the main song)
The negative points: The love scenes between Anbu’s uncle and Jeeva’s elder sister should have been kept to the minimum
(Always known as the good, down to earth image, Murali excelled in Idhayam. Image source: http://tamillatestmusic.blogspot.com)
Popular actor Murali (famed in movies like Idhayam & Porkkaalam) passed away in Chennai last week after suffering from a massive heart attack. He was just 46 years old.
(More known to her songs, Swarnalatha have sang for many big time actresses. Image source: http://www.last.fm)
And Swarnalatha, the famed playback singer, passed away after suffering from a lung infection. She was just 37 years old.
Damn, it is frightening to see how highly talented people die so young…
