Vetrimaaran + Dhanush and a ROCK SOLID Rural Revenge Tale.

Nearly a Masterpiece.

I don't have words to describe Dhanush in this film. Truly a natural actor, he was deeply involved in the character. His intense looks, the dialogue deliveries, innocence in the flashback scenes, perfect for this role.
Pasupathy was intense in a small role while Manju Warrier and Ken Karunas were living their characters.

incredible! personal stories of struggle couched in the centuries-long violence of the social structures of caste and class without minimizing lens on either. references to panchami lands, keezhvenmani massacre and Ambedkar’s commandments: educate, agitate, organize. and lots of subtext. vetri maaran is truly one of our pre-eminent filmmakers!

i literally travelled 700 km to watch this

if we own farmlands, they will seize them. if we have money, they will snatch it. but if we have education, they can never take that away from us. if you really want to win against them, study. study hard and become a powerful man ― but when you have the power, never do to anyone want they did to us.

Asuran starts off as a nerve-wracking and tense survival drama of a poor, lower-caste family, and gradually flips into an intense, blood-soaked revenge drama around class & caste violence. Vetrimaaran and Manimaran nuance screenwriting drops you in the middle of a nightmare and never let you catch your breath until the realisation of how important the education is. Even when the flashback feels inorganic to the narrative, the subplot on its own makes for a gritty drama about class division. It has plenty of well-earned, grounded gruesome violent scenes that would make your skin crawl. Dhanush turns into Sivasamy, a hotblooded youngster growing into a calm, patient father & husband, is one of the best performances of the year. He is a character actor who can shapeshift with ease of knife cutting the cheese, and his impeccable, unblemished performance as a hothead young boy and vulnerable, a composed man trying to protect his family is nothing less than a beauty to behold.

One of the most painful realization scenes in Asuran is to see an already tormented Lower class family not being able to identify their own son's corpse. The oppressors won't even give them that little privilege to mourn in peace.

How many of these stories have to be told? Asuran is just one of the many stories of the voiceless.

Painfully Urgent as fucking always

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilpa_M2u1z4

You can really feel the difference between Vada Chennai and this, both are different and it's unfair to compare but it's the same director and actor.
The editing felt really off at places and the color correction wasn't even done for some scenes. It was seen that they made it in no time.

One of my favourite looking Tamil films in recent memory. I hate the excessively glossy music video look that most modern Tamil films are adopting.

Dhanush is probably my fav Tamil actor. And I'm really loving his collaborations with Vetrimaaran. He's probably the only Tamil filmmaker left trying to push the craft forward.

While imperfect I appreciate his bolder editing choices. And it's only imperfect because Tamil films still haven't figured out their sound. Nolan's made multiple big budget commercial blockbusters that give fuck all about following classical continuity in editing. It's the weak sound that pulled me out of the film occassionally, and I'd argue that sound mixing is tied in with editing (think Murch).

Glad Vetrimaaran is still out there making excellent films while the rest of Tamil cinema crumbles. They don't make movies like this anymore. At least not with the skill that Asuran was made with.

Asuran's sequences of massacre earn every note of their beastly operatics, though they feels marred by a sort of factionist template to its revenge. This somewhat takes away much of the domesticized rage of Vetrimaaran's guerilla-energy set up in his initial and flashback segments. Dhanush's Sivasamy is a chronicle too customarily closed. And yet it's still one of sprawingly epic yarn...that the performer's native-artistry poignantly magnetizes.

Dhanush be nice.

An incredible exploration of caste subjugation and violence in a very filmy manner. While objectively speaking there are many issues with this film, it is really worth a watch.

So I finally watched a Vetri Maaran film. I intended to start wih Vada Chennai and make my way to Paava Kadhaigal but somehow Ashram ended up being my introduction to his work.

I wouldn't say I loved the film but it was good, especially Dhanush. I always knew that he is a great actor but I don't think anyone utilises his prowess better than Vetri Maaran.

The major issues I had with this film were mostly technical, extremely sloppy editing and dubbing. You'd think it is easy to overlook these things but they really did put me off of what was otherwise a really well shot and extremely well acted film.

Wow, this was fucking epic.

Solid story about how the priveliged exploit those of lower castes, with the latter group ending up paying for all the bullshit, whether it be their land or their lives.

Dhanush was incredibly convincing as both the subdued and protective father who looks like he's seen some shit, and the young, hot tempered boy who thought he could take on the world. And he slaughtered like a meat grinder as both.

The actor who played Siva's son also shines as a reflection of Siva's younger self, trying to better understand both the world and his father.

The old-timey feel is captured well with beautiful visuals, and the rawness captured with equally beautiful gore and bloodshed. Like wow, the shots of the forest, the plains, the fights and machete swipes.

powerful, painful, torturously real 

-so many scenes that cut through you

Retroactively gets the Evan Award for Dopest Movie of 2019

As soon as The Gray Man comes out on Netflix, the world is going to know how incredible an actor Dhanush is. I hope the Russos don’t write a stereotypical character for him.

Third time watch. For some reason, liked it more this time! Seriously powerful stuff. Fuck all casteists.

Revisiting after watching Oor Iravu. It's a narratively solid film. But Vetri Maaran seems to be in some sort of a hurry. He doesn't give time to let the moments breathe. The scenes which should have been slower with minimal cutting are unnecessarily hurried. It's a major drawback I feel. Other than that, the theme music is fucking fantastic. The flashback revenge scene is just dangerously performed by Dhanush. The caste politics is accurately depicted and that's a huge plus point for the film.

Its a revenge story about a father who when he loses his first son due to some farming land issue with a landlord and then what his second son does to take revenge and now what Dhanush has to do to protect him, and then the things that follow - exploring the conflict, evading capture and learning the backstory of why he is so resilience and calm and that backstory in 2nd half is heartbreaking. And then the climax scene, despite going through courts, how the personal conflicts become communal and what Dhanush does thereafter is just brilliant. The director gives an important message regarding the importance of education. I like the revenge to redemption storyline and that message at the end and the heavy action while still being realistic and a good resolution at the end and the excessive brutality of it. The acting performances were great, the screenplay gripping and the movie overall satisfying watch.

A tale of a feudal caste system that is still a reality in rural areas where the land are owned by big farmers and pressurize small farmers to give up their land as well. And when that small farmer is from so called lower caste according to those land owners the conflict becomes even bigger. There is a very horrifying yet heartbreaking scene that has probably never been done before in Indian Cinema at this scale and violence that it authenticity seems so real. But whether it is real or prosthetics I still cannot dissect it, that tells the realism level of this masterpiece from Vetri Maaran and Dhanush.

south Indian slow-mo fights scenes with coconut cutting knife mixed with epic background music will never bore me

Everything about this movie is superlative.