KO

KO

Theatre : TVM Dhanya
Showtime & Date : 11.15am, 23-04-2011
Status : Balcony Full, FC 99%

After Suriya starrer superhit AYAN, K.V.Anand is back with his new movie which also has an interesting title like AYAN(meaning THE ONE)- KO(which means KING) with Jiiva in lead(Karthi & Silambarasan were offered the same role). The movie is a political thriller.

Story
Ashwin(Jiiva) is a press photographer working for Dina Anjali newspaper. His co-workers include Renuka(debutant Karthika - daughter of yesteryear actress Radha) & Saro(Pia Bajpai). It's the election time & the main candidates are Yogeshwaran(PrakashRaj) who is the present chiefminster & Aalavandhan(Kota Sreenivasa Rao). In between comes Vasanthan Perumal(Ajmal Amir) who believes in clean politics. In an election campaign meeting by Vasanthan, a blast happens in which many of his friends & Saro gets killed. Ashwin & Vananthan's friends asks him to be in election.  In election he wins & becomes the youngest chief minister of Tamilnadu. After that Ashwin founds that Saro was not killed by blast, she was murdered. The rest is how Ashwin traps the killers of Saro.

Performances
Jiiva as Ashwin was safe in his hands. But when we watch the movie on screen, we may feel like a much more energetic & somewhat more mature in looks would have done the role. Suriya or Karthi were the perfect ones. Still Jiiva potrays the role in his own style & succeeds with his high voltage energy performance. Ajmal Amir lacks the fire that the character should have in many scenes. Nothing new is there for him other than a lengthy role. In some emotional scenes he was a bit bore too. Debutant Karthika is not that promising. Her expressions were bad at times. She was acting as if she's doing an 80's stage drama. Pia Bajpai was energetic as Saro but offers nothing new. PrakashRaj & Kota Sreenivasa Rao were wasted in not so well developed characters. But the scenes in which they appear belongs to them. PrakashRaj makes his mark on scenes he appear. Sona as Sumitha(spoofing Namitha) has nothing to do. Editor Anthony makes a cameo appearance. BOSE VENKAT steals the show towards the climax with smart dialogues.


Songs
Music by Harris Jeyaraj is not that impressive & most of the songs are rehash of his own music. Ennamo Aedho & Venpaniye is my pick of the lot though it reminds me of songs of same genre by Harris Jeyaraj in his previous films like Dhaam Dhoom, Unnaale Unnaale, Bheema...Picturisation of songs offers nothing new still enjoyable. Placement of Venpaniye song reminds us of Nenje Nenje song in Ayan. Gala Gala song was an unwanted one. Aga Naga had cameo appearances by Suriya, Karthi, Jeyam Ravi, Bharath, Jai, Shiva, Tamanna...Amali Thumali song had nice locations. Venpaniye song was badly picturised with graphics background. BGM was good.

Technical
Cinematography by Richard.M.Nathan was superb. Anthony once again proved that he's the best editor in Tamil Cinema. Art direction too was good. Peter Hein did a commendable job in action direction.

Script & Direction
Script was done by Subha & director K.V.Anand together. Basic storyline has slight similarity with hollywood flick STATE OF PLAY. The framework of the script is similar to same team's previous movie AYAN. Only the basic plot changes. The movie had an engaging script focussing the press people, media, politics, youngsters.... Everything was blended well in an interestng manner. There are no surprise twists for audiences as it is predictable for an average cinema goer. The final two scenes of the movie was superb & it showed the press people's commitment towards the society. The second half of the movie should have some more interesting with thrilling happenings. Gala Gala song would have been avoided in second half as it looks unwanted & acts as speedbreaker. It is the direction by K.V.Anand which makes the movie much more interesting. K.V.Anand the former photojournalist  presented the press related stuffs in convinving & realistic manner. Direction was racy & superb.

REELISM + REALISM = KO

Verdict : An interesting movie
BO Verdict : HIT

If compared with AYAN, KO is below only. Its the theme & presentation of the movie that makes the movie interesting.

Like for AYAN, you can carry your brain with you when going for this movie too, as it gives answers for many of your logic related questions.

One interesting scene I found is director question the logic of his previous film AYAN. Characters in this movie talks like a smuggler does his work well & in the end he gets job in Custom's department & the movie got 4 star rating.