Ponniyin Selvan: Part One
The Chola kingdom is under threat from forces both internal and external, and with crown prince Aaditha Karikalan, his younger brother Arunmozhi Varman and the emperor, Sundara Cholar separated by situations, it is up to a messenger to ensure the safety of the kingdom. Can he succeed in his mission, especially with Karikalan's former girlfriend, Nandhini, plotting to bring down the entire Chola empire?
- Released: 2022-09-30
- Runtime: 167 minutes
- Genre: Action, Drama, History
- Stars: Vikram, Jayam Ravi, Karthi, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Trisha Krishnan, Sobhita Dhulipala, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Prakash Raj, Prabhu, R. Sarathkumar, Vikram Prabhu, Jayaram, Rahman, R. Parthiban, Jayachitra, Ashwin Kakumanu, Lal, Nassar, Kishore, Nizhalgal Ravi, Riyaz Khan, Mohan Raman, Arjun Chidambaram, Vinodhini Vaidyanathan, Balaji Sakthivel, Sara Arjun, Babu Antony, Master Raghavan, Gopi Kannadasan, Ashwin Rao Pallakki, Vijayakumar, Yoge Jappie, Makrand Deshpande
- Director: Mani Ratnam
Comments
- smritigutti - 24 June 2023
Beautiful Chola World
Beautiful depiction of the long forgotten glory of the cholas. Even though this is based on anovel and may not be perfectly historically accurate.
But, when I was watching the movie I got drifted into the daily life of mediaeval indic royals, and Even common people. I enjoyed that a lot.
The clothes and jewellaries , require a lot of research and investment, they've tried to display how things were back in the day of the cholas.
I'm super impressed.
But, the battle descriptions are a little bit fierce We know that, they followed certain battle rules and everything happened systematically.
But in movie the people in war are shown like barbarians I think that's the only flaw I noticed in this movie. - Devanshu_Kashyap - 18 April 2023
Not an interesting watch for audiences with no preliminary Tamil cultural exposure from History point of view
I am a person who celebrates period drama and entertainment and very much interested in rich South Indian cultural movies. Movies like Bahubali, Rudhramadevi have been impeccable delights. But this one failed to reach the mark.
It was so confusing, overloaded with lots of information very quickly and radomly spewed all over. The poor illustration made it look so confusing.
Coming to acting, it was not so good. Punnaghai doesn't feel very convincing as a royalty, The alikadal song lyrics and the way it was enacted by Samudra-Kumari were so incongruent. Her body language and the way she was behaving with Karthi while carrying him in boat made zero connection with song. It appeared like she was into him in initial song parts. This completely goes against the song lyrics and way it was enacted.
Aditha Karikalan''s acting is so horrible when he recalls he history with Nandhini. He just fails to deliver it properly and that is why the camera had to be shaken erratically up and down to create and effect of traumatic past.
Aga Naga song was the major rage when part 1 was released, but the full song released in part 2 is so disappointing. A cover made by some youtuber last year 2022 with lyrics by her lyricist is much much better and emotionally relevant than the original.
Overall it was not gripping and interesting. Did not inspire much to explore aspects of Southern culture, the way other effective movies usually do to me. - ankurgupta-83501 - 18 December 2022
Review
Amazing movie with great screenplay which includes perfect actors. Historically it was hidden from people but this movie has done great. Bery few movies are released with such stories. Great backgroud music. Worth the watch. Must watch
This review is a personal opinion of one person.
There types of audience in the country.
1 - Who read the books, 2 - who didn't, 3 - who knows the history of Chola Kings.
The books were written 70 years back based on the characters and insidents of the chola kingdom in the format of a serial for a magazine, It has some fictional characters and drama for the intrigue. - iniyal - 22 November 2022
above average film for tamil audience. Difficult to understand for non tamil audience. And an 8/10 for novel readers
Will be difficult for non tamil audience to get the plot due to some things not explicitly explained: 1. Chola symbol is tiger, pandya symbol is twin fish (this symbol comes even in climax as an important hint) and sinhala symbol is lion.
2. Cholas and pandyas are sworn enemies. But pandyas and sinhala kings are friends.
3. Thanjavur is the capital of cholas but the crown prince resides in kanchipuram. The emperor stays here. Whereas princess prefers to stay in pazhayarai since it is more scenic with lakes and more private. The youngest prince is fighting in sri lanka.
4. Madurai is the capital of pandyas but during the period it is under chola rule.
What the movie captures well from the novel? Vathiyathevan's travel, chieftaina plotting, nandini's magical effect on anyone she meets. The climax captures the novel in the best way albeit with some changes to the story. The destruction of chola ship is visualised beautifully.
Where the movie can improve - a novel reader is left with some questions in mind, why cudnt they have shown the beauty of veeranam lake, and the scene with child pandya king is not too obvious to non novel readers. Also thambillai, why didnt they show the beauty of that place described in novel? Or the majestic buddha statues there? For non novel readers, they wont know why arunmozhi is pretending to be a mahout in thambillai.. - kaushykutti - 11 November 2022
Tedious. Choppy. Boring. Unconvincing.
Tedious. Choppy. Boring. Unconvincing.
Too many grand old actors trying to play young.
It's not even bad enough to be funny.
Mani has absolutely lost his ability to weave magic on screen.
The novel may have been good. But it's a poorly made movie. An absolute drag.
Ponniyin Selvan was a modern novel. Not to be confused with history. History is fact. Novel is fiction, which can be inspired by real life situations.
For the self professed Chola history buffs: It was the same story in every kingdom. Vanity, jealousy, betrayal, lust and revenge.
But Trisha was gorgeous. Wish she had more screen time.
