The film travels through the journey of two archaeologists (Andrea jeremiah & Reema Sen) to East-Asia in search of the ancient tamil ruler's chola's kingdom along with military base headed by Azhagu perumal and Local workers headed by Karthi sivakumar. The events and sequences that unfolds throughout the travel forms the first half of the film. The second half is an entirely different genre, that explores the civilizations of the Chola Kingdom.
Ayirathil Oruvan is of a fantasy genre, where a few minor logical error's can be kept aside. Watching this film in the huge screen has been an amazing visual experience. Its a visual treat, with Ramji's camera work that deserves special a mention. When it comes to film making its an visual experience, there should not be a difference between camera work and CG work. In this film we could clearly differentiate the sequences shot & the CG's used. It requires more time and techinical finesse to make the CG portions of ayirathil oruvan to look more realistic and authentic.
The script is not a fresh script, with selvaraghavan drawing inspirations from Mckena's Gold( The Nataraja - Stone Henge sequence) , 300 (War and stunt sequences) , The Lord of the rings Trilogy and Indiana Jones series. He has done enough research for the tamil dialect, the chola's lifestyle and the costumes. The research work has been
indeed wonderful. The screenplay has a lot of loose knots, which has not been taken care even in the edit. There would be a sequence where Karthik, Reema and Andrea escape from the fourth form of danger the snakes. They would escape through the river after that there is a sequence of loosely interconnected shots that does not even relate to each other, and finally we find them in the middle of the forest.
We agree that the script is a fantasy, where a few logical errors can be neglected. There were more big blunders in the screenplay that is hard to believe. Before the beginning of an military journey, the equipments and machinery would be properly planned for the whole trip. In the final sequences of the film when Karthik and the boy escapes from the militants, its hard to believe that they easily escaped in front of so many militants with weapons. The casting of the militants is not commendable, I meant they must look like a person working for the Indian military. whereas the casting of the people living in the Chola civilization is especially with the black make-up.
When it comes to the performance's Parthiban has done a mindblowing work. Karthik shines effortlessly in the comic sequences than the serious scenes. In the first of Half, Karthik has started from where he left off in paruthi veeran. Reema Sen has done a brilliant portrayal as the girl from the pandiya kingdom. Both Andrea and Azhagu perumal does not have enough scope to perform.
The soundtrack of the film is commendable for the songs, specially in the second half. The Theme's A celebration of life and The King arrives were really top notch from a young music composer like G V Prakash. The Background scores were heavily inspired from the tracks of Metallica. Different ancient instruments has been used for the soundtrack to provide the ancient historic era feel.
Set design and the art work for the film, specially the second half meets expectations. Costumes are designed by Erum Ali deserves a special mention, considering the magnitude and the junior artists of the film.
Selvaraghavan has the gifted potential to create those unforgettable moments in a film, fails to perfectly execute his visualization. The effort that has been put into this project is truly huge and has opened avenues that Indian cinema's got to explore upon. If the detailing of the first half as well as the screenplay had been slick, it would have been better.Watch it in a big screen once for the experience.
