 Have you seen any more Oscar films? They have a booger hanging out of your nose. Nope, still there, it's gross. Is it really my left nostril? No, it's still there. No, I don't have a tissue, go fix it. Can you help me with this? I literally don't want to stare at that the entire time. Hey, welcome back to our Stupid Rangchi, it's up Corvin. They wrote a song about me called Boogie Wonderland. And you follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Instagram, juicy content. My nose has got some juicy content. Is it all good? You'll fit, you can come in. Is it all good? Yeah, I don't want to look in your nose. You open the door more. Yeah, there you go. And Johnny's coming in the room. Bless her little heart. I have clothes hanging on the door. She's got a nice coffee in her hand. She has her salad in the other hand. She's got her bag on her shoulder. It's a tight little room that we're in. Yeah, it is. But anyways, today we're doing a movie of you little boys and girls and everyone in between. That's true. And today we're doing a movie review of the 2004 film, Virumandi. Virumandi? Is that how you pronounce that? Yeah, it's weird. IMDb has it spelled like that. I have it spelled, I guess it's the same. Is it Virandi? V-I-R-A-A, I don't know. I hate that we always have that problem because the titles are important. Yeah, I'm going to say Virumandi. But it's written, directed, produced, and starring. How would you say that name? Yes. It is Virumandi, it's just missing an A. Camille Hasuna? Is that how you pronounce that name? And Drani just stopped everything she was doing and looked over at Corbin as if for a split second she thought he was being real. Komahasa. But that's how we would have done it three years ago. No, we would have come closer anyway. Yeah, but anyway, stars, directed, produced, edited, and also composed by Rajasar. So this is obviously going to be 100% spoiler review. Obviously, if you haven't seen it, go watch it. We saw it on a random site. You might be able to have better access to it than we did, obviously, being in India. But obviously, once again, 100% spoiler review came out almost 20 years ago. Wow. So, Rick, your initial thoughts, please. Well, this is our 21st of the year, our 20th Tamil, by the way. Pebbles isn't on our Tamil list. On the playlist? On the playlist? Because I looked at our playlist and I was looking to see if I might have missed it. I might have missed it. Yeah, I double-checked our list and I double-checked the things. So this is our 20th demo, our 229th all-time. One can't help but wonder if what Komahasaan was setting out to do with Virumandi and its accompanying Rushaman effect was to not only tell us a story about how differing perspectives shape our beliefs, values, and rules about criminals in our society, but to tell us a story about how differing perspectives also shape our beliefs, values, and rules about artists in our society. And that's why the more I watch Komahasaan, the more I love Komahasaan. I've seen enough of him to know now that he has everything you could ever wish for in a cinematic artist. A full-blown balls to the wall, letting it all hang out, genius of multiple talents, who is constantly challenging themselves and throwing all of themselves into their works and leaving huge pieces of themselves in their work in the process. He is the wild bull in this film, raging, untamed, and refusing to be ridden by talking heads in the movie business and making films he wants to make, letting his artist's heart run and roam forever free. Oh, that the world of cinematic artistry had more artists like Komahasaan. So yeah, you could say I'm in. Hold on, whoa, that's two Tamil films in a row. I know. What is going on? You're supposed to hate all South Indian films. It's true. I'm supposed to fit the stereotypes that everyone has for me, but I don't. I really, really enjoyed this film, actually. It might be one of my favorite Komahasaan films in it. It took me a second, though, about an hour to... I mean, I was liking it, but I was like, okay, this is a little confusing for an obvious reason. Once again, this is going to be a spoiler review. It was in the beginning, tracking who everybody was and what was going on was tough in the first 15 to 20. Until you figured out exactly what he was doing. I was like, I hope I don't get lost in this. So I was like, okay, there's a lot going on here. And then when it finally came in and Komahasaan stepped... I mean, I know he'd been in the film, but when he stepped into the interview, that one that was a powerful performance of his were just in that interview setting there itself. Yep. He's one of the best actors ever, right? Yep. From that moment on, I was like, it was a fantastic. It might be one of my favorite Komahasaan performances and films that we've seen thus far. I agree. We've only seen very few. It's really tough, but I'm so grateful for the stupid family making the suggestions you've made and the films we've seen thus far because I, and I'm not saying the other ones probably aren't as genius, but I can say like I did in my paragraph that after now having seen what I've seen, he's one of the most important contributors to film in acting-wise and direction-wise in just the biggest thing for me that I've learned about him is what I wrote in that he is the quintessential cinematic artist. He's everything you want people to be in their gifting, in their focus, in their film IQ. And I would say like of what we've seen thus far, if someone said to me, what would you say is the film that is like the most, not autobiographic, but the one most revealing of the DNA of this man, I would think it's in this one because right now people getting kicked off, doing the jumps and the flips and the things, some of the things will get into the technical aspects of the cinematography and some of the people. He always tries to do stuff that pushes the technological boundaries for the time. Just with the acting alone, I know one of the people he admired most was Marlon Brando and what I love about Kamal Hassan is that he doesn't impersonate Brando, he just does what Brando did, which was be in the moment, listen and be dangerous. He's a very dangerous actor and it's one of my favorite things about Kamal Hassan is he's just, anything could happen at any moment with this guy. Yeah, and we'll get into all that. This would be of obviously Kamal Hassan heavy review since he did everything. Everything. So it'll be a heavy, but it's his acting first for Kamal Hassan and the acting in general because I think actually everybody did really, really well. But obviously Kamal Hassan in this performance, I was very different performance than anything of him we've seen so far. It's extremely different, he looked different, obviously the mutton chop, the fashionable steps, the thing was epic. Even his anger was different, you know? In the same way, he didn't fully shape shift as it were, like I could still see Kamal Hassan, but not everybody has to completely disappear in their character. Kamal Hassan doesn't really. Exactly, but what I did notice was like, compared to other characters he's played that get angry, there was just something different about this guy and I believe him, I've grown to appreciate him so much as an actor that especially those quiet moments like the interview or the very final scene at the news desk which those documentary TV news moments felt like real. Yeah, they did a great job. I mean they looked complete. If you showed that to somebody and told them nothing and just said, what do you think of this news clip? They wouldn't question it was a news clip. Yeah, I literally thought they were like showing us a real documentary that they were making and this film was gonna be off of that kind of stuff. They did a really good job making those, it actually seemed like it was a real documentary, a real news segment, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I had a bunch of favorite moments of him but my favorite moment was right when he stepped on at the hour mark essentially. When he took the interview chair? Took the interview chair? Yeah. It was like a different weight of presence just sat down and he had been in the film obviously the entire time but obviously he was carrying a different weight at that moment in the film and also who he thought this man was. Well, and we got at that moment, I referenced him in the paragraph, we got the perspective change. So for anybody who doesn't know, I referenced in the paragraph that there's something called the Rashomon effect and forgive me if I've mispronounced the name of the film. There's a film in the 1950s in Japan that was as far as we know the first time in cinema where the same story is told from two different perspectives. And actually the show that Indrania and I have been watching called The Affair, that's one of our favorite things about the show. If the first half of one episode will say Noah and then the second half of the hour, it'll say Allison and it's the exact same events but it's from different perspectives and everything changes including like how in Noah's perspective, he was dressed a certain way where he felt he was dressed nice and she's complaining that he doesn't look nice enough for where they're going. And then in Allison's perspective, you see he's dressed really inappropriately and it's simply giving you the two perspectives. So I felt like that was one of the very beginning points and a credit to him as well with his acting that he gave us a little different perspective based on the perspective we were seeing. Yeah, his whole performance in this was really good. I think it might be my favorite performance of his. I think I agree with you. Just because of how intense, I mean, I know he's given a bunch of really good ones in the past obviously but this one was, it's really up my alley too. This style of acting and this kind of character. It's a grittier and kind of more balls to the wall essentially for raw, dangerous, freaky. And so I think he did a really good job with this character because he's an amazing artist. It was really, really cool. And then to his, the female opposite of him. Yes, forgive mispronouncing your name. I believe it's pronounced Abhirami. Apparently we saw her near Miracle or Anthony. No, that's not the original. Oh, is that not? No, no, that's a remake. That was a remake? Yeah, that's probably terrible. But yeah, I, she was great. She was wonderful. She has really good, really good presence. Yeah, that's good. I was thinking about the dummies for next year and we probably need to do dummies for the films released that year and then anything from the past. Essentially, because this is like the first year since the pandemic happened that we're gonna get real releases. We're gonna get a lot. A lot of them. So, she for me, I would, for me in the dummy categories, this got picture, direction, actor, him, actress, her, best supporting actor, Pasupathy, if I mispronounce your name, sir, forgive me. And we saw him in the boxing. Yes. I recognized him immediately. Immediately. I was like, he's just younger here. And he's still strong of an actor. Just as good. Thespian all over the place, man. He's so good. I wanna see a lot more of him. Perhaps he is a great actor. Yeah, he is. Just a great actor. Just as good as, obviously, just a very different role, but still as his presence is, he brings a weight to it, but he's crazy, because he's not an intimidating looking guy to me. No, but his eyes are. Yeah. He brings his intensity and his presence to him. His eyes are intimidating and it's kind of similar. It actually might be a good comparison. Joe Pesci. One of the most unintentional. Very good, very good comparison. Obviously. It's a stretch, but if you know Joe Pesci, you know what we're talking about. If you saw Joe Pesci, you didn't hear him talk and you just saw him standing on the street. You'd be like, oh, one of those really small person. Right. And he looks like a nice guy. Just looks like a nice guy. But like obviously in his acting, he's an intense, very dangerous. And he looks so dangerous, like you said, and all of the stuff he does. I even like, in Home Alone, he's Joe Pesci, man. I love Joe Pesci. But yeah, it's a similar vibe I get of somebody who I normally wouldn't, like Fafa has like an intensity about him. I could see him like being crazy, like in person. Sure, sure. Not in real life, but I'm talking, like just if you see somebody, he has a more, not as intimidating demeanor about him, but he brings the weight in his eyes and his performance. The minute I saw him, I was so excited because I liked him so much. And he did exactly in this, what he did in that film, which was really impressed me. The three of them carrying the film, every moment they're on screen, it's just fun to watch great actors doing great work. Say her name again, please. I believe it's Abhirami. Yeah, her and Kamal had great chemistry. Great chemistry. So every moment of them together was believable. And didn't we hear that song? Was that the song Kamal Hassan sang with Rajasar when he wasn't feeling well, their love song? It's possible. Cause the moment that song started, that's in my mind. It sounded familiar. I don't know where I heard it though. Yeah, I'm sure we've heard that song live. But yeah, their chemistry was great. That whole montage once it got to his perspective and then they went into their love relationship. I thought it was a really cool reveal obviously when they went from the first project. She came to the door and he said, stay in your house. And then you figure out what was going on behind that when it was switched. It was really, really good. And we'll talk about, I guess directing. We'll get into that. Directing and writing, I think one of the most brilliant parts of this entire film. I agree. Because like I said, it took me about an hour to really get in. Cause I was like, I was enjoying it in the first hour, but there was a lot going on. I was trying to keep up with who's who. Right. And what everyone's deal is. And what whose name is who's name? Whose name is who's name? But right literally when Kamal sat down on the chair and they switched his perspective, I was like, okay, I know what we're doing now. Right. And then they basically went over the film again from another, which I love that idea. Me too. I usually like films, cause I think it's like a cliche thing to do now of like you sit somebody down and you're telling a story and then it goes into the thing. Obviously back in the day, it wasn't cliche. Right. But it's become cliche. It has become. So for the audience of today, you see it and it seems repetitive for getting the fact that this was very groundbreaking, very groundbreaking for the time, but also it brought a different element to that. It did. I mean, I know you're obviously, you talked about, I don't know that film specifically. Yeah, it's a TV series. TV series. No, not the affair, the Japanese one. Oh yeah, I've never seen the film. I just know of it. Yeah. And what they call that the effect from that film. But I love that idea because obviously it's so much, cause it's obviously talking about how your perspective can change just by who's telling you the story. Yeah. And so we talk about that all the time. Absolutely. And I think Clint Eastwood did a film but it was two different films. Correct, from two different perspectives. But, and the reason that's important, obviously in this story was because a lot of this had to do with the legal system and obviously the primary topical thing that covered which was the death penalty. But I really wonder and would love, if we, that would be one of my questions if we ever had the honor of talking to Kamal Hassan, would be, was one of your intentions with this was to not just do that as a primary focal point, but was it to use that as something of a metaphor, I mentioned that in my paragraph, of the way artists are often viewed and how what they do in artistry, it's a matter of perspective and how the community of artists is often considered the outcasts in the way that criminals are sometimes wrongfully accused of being outcasts and not given respect or perspective. I mean, even something perspective wise is calling a jail, what they were originally supposed to be called are correctional facilities. But they're not, they're punitive cages in many respects. And whether or not someone's guilty in most courts of law isn't always based on truth that's based on who won the legal case, who got the perspective that was at the forefront. There's a whole public's perspective as well. Yeah, yeah. So I thought, I don't know if he had that as an ancillary or undercurrent metaphor, but I felt it. Yeah, it's a very interesting topic too obviously because that's a touchy subject. I don't know if it is illegal in India now. I don't know if it... Yeah, I don't know. Indrani, do you know, is the death penalty, is it the same in all of the states in India as the death penalty legal? Is it not legal? Does it differ depending upon... Not sure? Okay. It's legal here. And it's a massive... Well, it depends on what state you're in. That's true. I think California is still legal. They just don't do it. They don't. It's been a while since they have... Texas will execute you looking at you sideways. Yeah, I think they've had the most. It's in the past many years. But yeah, so it's a big debate. No, obviously, no matter where you go. And so I love that films bring up that touchy subject that people have very different opinions about. I don't think there's anything Kamal wouldn't talk about. I think if there's anything that he feels a particular passion about, he'll make a film about it and he could have everybody going, please don't, please don't. And he would do it if he feels he needs to talk about it. One thing I've always loved about him is that not only him pushing the boundaries in terms of the effects. Everything. In terms of intimacy on film. I mentioned that to Andrani. Yeah, like this one was incredible. You were basically having sex on screen almost. Right? They were doing something. Straight up, I love it. And some of it was hinted at like when she was on her hands and knees and he came up behind her and it's like, I wonder what he's wanting us to know there. And then someone that was just overt, he does not shy away. I mentioned this in Hey Rom. I loved the rawness of his and Ronnie McCurgy's relationship and it added to that sense of believability in the depth of their attraction to each other. And again, with these two, I felt they were completely uninhibited. I really believed they were in love with each other. And I do, I love, I know that the rating system at the time for this movie because of that and because of the violence was like, can we talk about? The violence? Let's talk about it. Oh, I love the thing about violence. It was so good. Obviously, you could call it a little cheesy at times because of the, like how far, how long ago it was and how different it is now and what you do. But obviously if I'm going off the time and what they put on screen, which we've seen a lot of films from that time now in India and obviously it's, you can't compare to what they were doing here in America at the time obviously. No, that's not fair. But even at the time in India, what they were doing then, I loved all of the arm chops, the leg chops, the blood coming out of the... Even things that strained credulity, like sometimes there would be, there were a couple of continuity things where you got hit in the thing with the machete and then it wasn't there, but then it was there. Totally forgivable. I saw that. As was some of the mortal wounds that some people got where they really would have bled out at about 30 seconds but they lived for another five, six minutes. All of that was so forgivable. And so much of that is just again, what I mean by that balls to the wall. I want you to see this because I'm, he's just, I think there's nothing he wouldn't do to, he wants you to see the visceral reality of the way things play out in certain situations. And has there ever been a more fantastic or iconic death of the antagonist than that ending death for the name of his character in the movie, Pasupati. Oh. When he gets launched off the, off of the roof. That, I wrote down in my notes as I was watching it. I wrote down and said, has there ever been a more incredible way for, and kudos, this is a dummy nomination. The stunt work in this was so, so good. Yeah. I wonder how many people got hurt on set with some of the stunts, especially the bullfighting sequences. Yeah, that was one I hated watching it. Yeah, that's tough to watch. Cause I just obviously had some other films about it and it didn't ruin my experience, obviously. But do you, I had the spot watching it. Do you not like rodeos? Oh, I hate rodeos. Okay. That makes sense. I don't like anything that you make an animal do that he wouldn't already have done. Like putting an animal to work outside of like horses and sheet cattle dogs. And that's not really a show that's they're working. This is, those dogs love to do that. The horses love to do what they do. I do have a problem with the pony, like the ponies going around and around and around and pony rides, pony rides. Yeah, for kids. So like stuff like that, it doesn't ruin my experience. It's just a personal, I just, it's hard for me to watch stuff, especially when it's stuff like that. They're literally pinning down this animal. Yeah. Whatever it's cultural. That's not what this films about. That's my opinion of it. But I do agree that the scenes where they were shot were intense and I guarantee there were so many people that actually got incredibly injured. And so good because there could have been a lot of choices that he made. And this goes again to the heart of this guy as an artist. There's so many shortcuts he could have taken. There's so many things he could have done to try to make it look good. And it might have come off as cheesy, but it was so obvious that he was wanting everything to look as believable and as real as possible. He didn't want any stand-ins for himself. He wanted to make sure that you're using a real animal. There were some shots in that whole sequence where I thought, how the crap did he just do that and not get hurt? And that's the other thing that's just evidence of what we've seen him do. I really feel, I know he learned something brand new for this. I feel like there's nothing, he's like Tom Cruise. You may not like Tom Cruise as an actor. Tom will do anything when it comes to stunt work. And he'll think of stuff outside the box and his life insurance people will go, you've got to sign off on this because this is nuts. And I feel like there's nothing, Kamal Hassan. If you said to him, I want you to do this, this, this and this, we're gonna put some scorpions in the thing and then they're gonna put some boa constrictors around your feet and some pythons behind you and you're gonna be thrown into this live thing of piranha. He'd be like, is it gonna, the story's gonna come through on that? I'm in. Yeah, I mean, I do think he's one of those artists. And also something on her, Abhirami. And especially towards the beginning, she was giving me vibes of what I was hoping like Aliya was like that character in Ganglubai. Yep, she was giving me those vibes and obviously she's much older now and so she couldn't have played that character but that's, she was giving me some of the vibes of what I wanted from that character in that film. Yeah, I think it might have been just the glasses because she looked a lot like what Aliya was doing. It could have been. Yeah, I could have. She's a very strong actress. And also I thought the score in this by Rajasar was really incredible and also very, I felt it was very dammel, a lot of the songs and the way they filmed it. I don't know how often they've worked together but I can't think of a pair of a director and a composer that work better together. And I'm talking like. Vashal and Vashal. Yeah, Vashal and Vashal. But like the penultimate for me, cinematically is obviously Spielberg and John Williams. But I could easily go back and watch this just for the score and watch, pull yourself out of the story now that you know the story and just watch the way that they work this together and how some things sound more frenetic during the fighting sequences and how some things sound more appropriate to what you would expect to happen with Village Life and then how you would expect some things to happen where there's no sound whatsoever. The documentary sections have no score at all, which lends tour, that's a definitive choice to not have score happening in those moments. And the other thing about the cinematography, he like did everything throw in the kitchen sink with. I mean, he even stuff obviously for the time that I'm sure they didn't have the budget for to do what they wanted to and to, I was going to say something and then I literally just logged it to go on. Okay, even things as simple as rather than do a cutaway when they're looking at him in the hospital bed and they're standing in the bed and they're like four or five people are talking into camera and that's supposed to be talking to Kamal. Rather than do cuts, he does these bleeds so that the one person morphs into the other person. That's much more difficult to do than just doing a fast edit. What do you think about the one they were on the motorcycle and it was supposed to be nighttime? Oh, do you think it was daytime and they just made it look like nighttime? Yeah, I know they did, but I loved it. I thought it worked. It worked, but it was like, I think there's people watch that and would not know. It was clearly daytime that the blue shot they put over. But it worked as did. There was one beautiful sequence. I don't know how many times he tried to get the shot but he and his girlfriend, the wife of Hirami, the actress, he's just fallen on top of her and is kissing her. And it's obviously gonna be an intimate moment and the lantern, the light, the torch lands on the ground and cameras on ground. They're on the mattress or the bed, wherever they are. And the focal point of the camera captures the light as it just rolls like this, rolls like this and then centers itself and makes the background unable to be seen because of the glare and then he fades into sunrise. And the sun is in the exact same position that the torch was in facing lens. It happened. The minute it was rolling, I thought, he did this, I don't know how many times, that thing's not gonna stop until it's dead straight into lens and everything else gets blacked out. And then of course he does the fade in and takes it up a notch. So you can talk about Kamahasan the writer, you can talk about Kamahasan the actor and you can talk about Kamahasan the director and he is equally brilliant in all aspects. Yeah, it's hard to find somebody that's comparable to him in terms of like how good they are at each specific thing outside of Vishal being a good composer and a director. Well, and then. So we never seen him act though. He's a dancer. Yeah. He's a singer. I, who? Like I love Mel Gibson, right? Mel Gibson is a really good actor. And he's an actor, right? And he's a brilliant director. And he can write. Guess Clint East would be similar in that aspect. Yeah, but he also edited this. Yeah. Which is crazy. And I don't know that those guys can sing and I don't know that those guys can dance. Oh, I can almost get a TV. They can't. Is there anybody in film that is basically who can do pretty much every discipline? Granted, there might be. It's just, especially here in Hollywood, you don't get that opportunity. Nobody's gonna be like, okay, I want you to do everything. It could if you had the level of, like somebody of Tom Cruise's caliber, he can do whatever the heck he wants to do, but he doesn't do those things. Yeah. And also, it's kind of nuts. I don't know how you stay sane doing all that. Doing all of that. Doing one of those is a lot of work. Just one of those things. To do acting and directing at the same time is a incredible feat for a feature film of this magnitude. But obviously to be in every single part of the process is... I can't fathom it. Like I've told you, I just, I directed and starred in something once. It was a play and I hated it because I couldn't take the director hat off no matter what I did. I couldn't act and I want, which sucks because every time I was acting, I was thinking about everything else that's happening with every other person because that all matters and I have to give notes. Yeah. Yeah, it's really crazy. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed this film. Like I said, it might be my favorite performance of his. One of my favorite films of his overall in general. But obviously we've seen, what, five? Of his? Yeah, five. Five or six. And he probably has over 100. Yeah, at least. Oh, and quick shout out. I did some studying. I know how many sets were built for this. So many, pretty much everything. Oh, geez. Yeah, just built. Built, created. So like a production design and art direction on this would get a dummy nom because so much of the stuff that they did, like in the village itself, so much of that was just freestanding stuff created by the construction team. So that too. Yeah, yeah. I'm hoping the man can be our dose one day. Oh my goodness. That'd be cool. That would be extraordinary. Well, please let us know what you thought about this film and what should be our next Kamal Hassan film. I know that'll be highly debated in the comments, obviously, because he has so, so many. Yeah. And he's obviously one of those beloved and probably all brilliant. Yes. So please let us know what the next Kamal Hassan film should be down below.