Tag Archives: Action Hero Biju

The Best of Malayalam Cinema in 2016: A Perspective

2016 has turned out to be a slightly low key year for Malayalam Cinema overall, with strangely a decrease in the output, both in terms of quantity and quality. Talking of the number of releases there has been a sharp decline in terms of both straight as well as dubbed releases. From 153 releases overall last year (140 straight and 13 dubbed), 2016 saw the release count drop to 122 overall (118 straight releases and 4 dubbed films). And sadly the culmination of the year has ended on a really sad note for the industry, a pity considering the kind of promising films which were lined up for release in the Christmas-New Year festive season.  What started off as a tussle between the producers and distributors/exhibitors over revenue sharing and was expected to get resolved well before the Christmas weekend has extended into a huge deadlock of sorts. As a result all the major festival releases continue to wait for a release and will now in all certainty turn out to be the first few releases of 2017.Continue reading “The Best of Malayalam Cinema in 2016: A Perspective”

Top 20 Malayalam Film Songs of 2016: A Compilation

As 2016 comes to a close, there are familiar rumblings in the Malayalam film world about new film releases with the distributors, producers and theatre owners slugging it out leading to no releases on a Christmas weekend! This is a familiar scenario for Malayalam cinema buffs but let’s hope this perennial bickering gives way to new releases waiting to hit the road, for an industry which has perked up a bit recently in the mainstream space. Meanwhile, I decided to spend time to look at the audio tracks this year and see how they stack up.Continue reading “Top 20 Malayalam Film Songs of 2016: A Compilation”

Action Hero Biju: Stereotypes and Prejudice

I have been hearing positive response from those who have seen Action Hero Biju, finally I watched it this weekend. I must say that I quite enjoyed it, but somehow I was left wondering why some aspects of the film were not discussed by the reviewers or people who have seen it.

For starters, there is a scene which involves an auto rickshaw driver who is a paramour of a housewife. The scene starts with Biju (Nivin Pauly) asking about the affair, and the camera zooms in to the lady in question and we see a middle aged fat lady with dark complexion. Biju shows contempt and mocks him for falling in love with her, it is as if Biju does not believe middle age woman should not fall in love with people or do not have any emotions.Continue reading “Action Hero Biju: Stereotypes and Prejudice”

Action Hero Biju Movie Review: A Month in the Life of a Cop

For some reason or the other when it comes to thinking about a career as a Policeman one is quite likely to have varied opinions. For some it might give you the image of a fearless cop who is all out to protect the people and who is more than capable of beating the shit out of any bad guy. Or else you could think of a corrupt cop, who is happy to keep himself/herself happy at the cost of everything else, even law and order and crime. If you happen to be falling into either the first category of people or the second, then needless to say that you are in the majority. After all we are all used to hearing tales of or watching movies which either feature a fearless dashing cop, or have witnessed enough and more tales of cops who are corrupt and/or who harass ordinary people, often without any rhyme or reason.Continue reading “Action Hero Biju Movie Review: A Month in the Life of a Cop”