This is a well-written, well-acted, well-scored, well-edited, well- shot, and well-paced movie. Sure, there are some directorial mistakes such as city raised actors butchering the accent, disruption of the narrative by some song sequences, etc. However, I don't understand how this movie was regarded as a POS when it came out. I'm disheartened by tamil audience's verdict. OKK is a subpar movie and in no way can compare to this. Mani, if you get a chance to read this, please consider collaborating more with Jayamohan and other prominent writers in the future. If you believe love stories is what would get tamil audience celebrate a movie, please work on one along with a writer. I'm giving 10 just to boost the score. This is an easy 7+ movie.

Story : It is an atypical "Good vs Evil" story told in Maniratnam's perception.Performances : The casting is superb. Everyone acted well but Aravind Swamy and Arjun shine in their roles. Gautham Karthik makes a fine debut.Story-Screenplay-Direction : Story is nice with some interesting twists thrown in. Screenplay is little dragging. It is absolutely dull in the scenes following Sam's conviction. The concept of hero joining Bergman is unconvincingly told. I thought hero is avenging. Direction is nice. The scenes like Thomas taking the newly born baby into his hands and looking at Jesus Christ's idol are excellently shot and they show the class of Maniratnam.Music & Background Score : Music by A.R.Rahman is godly. It is divine, sweet, eclectic, soul stirring and adjectives are insufficient. Every song is a gem. This is easily the best album from Mani-ARR combo since "Alaipayuthey". Background Score is excellent again. Rahman has bought in the global music feel to the background score. The orchestration is superb. In short, the music and background score out shines the movie itself.Other Departments : Cinematography by Rajeev Menon is topnotch effort. Watch the climax and know how good the cinematography of this film is. Editing is okay. Artwork is excellent.Final Piece : This is typical Maniratnam movie. It is dark, silent and has little commercial elements. But Maniratnam's fans like me may like this film. I liked it. Plus points are some extraordinary scenes, excellent music, performances by Arjun and Aravind and world class cinematography. Minus points are over all slow pace of the movie, unconvincing told concept of hero joining Bergman and lack of universal appeal. Watch it with academic interest.

KADAL ( 2013 )Saw this on the release date itself. Normally it doesn't happen with Tamil movies as far as my movie watching habit is concerned.KADAL is a pretty simple story. The life of a boy who grows up among the illiterate fishermen on sea shores. But that's not just about it. its also the story of good v/s evil fight. Good represented by the priest ( played by Aravind Sami ) and evil represented by rich bad guy (played by Arjun). That's not it about it its also about how love can change someone into good and bring them close to god. Now, that's it about the movie.All clichéd plots, no unseen situations or anything. KADAL is a normal average movie. There is nothing mind blowing or supergood story wise. But in terms of making there are few things I really loved.Songs of a movie play a huge role in pulling the audience to it. KADAL album is already a huge hit and there would be people coming in also to see those beautiful songs. I was also waiting for it to come on screen and I am totally surprised!! The sound track of the movie had different genres of songs and I was wondering what placement or picturisation they would have in a movie related to sea.Right from the moment when my favorite track MAGUDI unfolded on screen, I realized that the experimentation begins then onwards. When you see the songs with the movie, I felt all of them doesn't blend well. But if the songs are viewed alone, they would look good and different. I liked the ' adiye.. enne enge ne' song picturisation very much for that was never what I had imagined that song would be like. MAGUDI also could have been better.As always, Rajeev Menon's cinematography is beautiful and stunning in the climax scene. The climax scene in the sea reminded of Hollywood movies like Pirates of the Caribbean. I was so stunned to see that quality of vfx making it so real!!Coming to the actors in this, KADAL marked the debut of two star-kids. KARTHIK's son GAUTAM and actress RADHA's second daughter TULSI. They could not have asked for a greater opening than this. Gautam has some allu arjun mannerisms but other than that he looks promising. Tulsi needs an acting workshop/course before she moves on . it was so delighting to see the wonderful actors ARAVIND SAMI and ARJUN on screen again.KADAL has very few characters only and they were very limited in the script. It seemed as if they had not much to do in the story. Screenplay could have been much better and powerful. May be the Director Sir wanted to concentrate more on the emotion side of the story rather than the actual story.. who knows?? I am no one to talk about it.

I am a huge fan of Mani Rathnam and it is normal for me to watch his movies more than once, usually there are more than one element that requires a second watch to cherish -- music, cinematography, abstract narration, short yet sharp dialogues, rather bold characters etc. I wanted to get out of the theater during the intermission on kadal. Mani Rathnam, to me, is great at telling white collar perspective stories-- mounaragam, roja, uiyre, bombay, Kannathil Mutham Ittal etc or at telling the story of the under dog -- dalapathi, nayakan etc. He sucks at capturing the slum atmosphere -- or may he depicts it to perfection that you cannot enjoy it. This movie to me fell under the category, it failed miserably to get me excited about the characters or the story line. Sujatha was badly missed, apparently the crisp dialogues was his contribution and was missing completely. I have a sad feeling that Mani Rathnam might be heading for spiral down like Barathyraja in his latter days. I hope I am terribly wrong.