Ashoka Chakram - Review

By Super Admin

Monday, November 26, 2007


Arun Pandyan is known as the hero of action thrillers. He is basically a good fighter. This time, he chose to play a key role in a film as a character artist and promoted five new faces as heroes. Though they can't be called as heroes, the long footage on the screen makes them call heroes. Ayesha played a little bigger role than Swetha and Sairabanu, who appeared as heroines. Fight master Vicky Varma turned a director and wielded the megaphone for 'Ashoka Chakram' produced by Yohanan Alex, which is basically made as an action thriller with forest backdrop. But for the movement of the five boys in the forest and a girl, there is nothing to thrill at all.

DIG Ranjith Kumar (Arun Pandyan) is a sincere police officer. When he was an ACP, he teaches a lesson to a goon Devender (Ponnambalam), who has good influence among politicians, police, doctors and lawyers. Despite several crimes, he goes scot-free with the help of all these forces. Once Ranjith arrests Devender with the help of a person, who complains against him that he raped his wife. Ranjith proves Devender guilty and the court awards death sentence. However, he escapes from the police and makes everyone believe that he died in an accident. Later, he calls up Ranjith and kidnaps Ranjit's wife Shanti (Surekhavani), who was pregnant. He again makes Ranjith believe that he had killed Shanti. Though Ranjith pleads with the higher officials that Devender is alive, nobody agrees with him. So, Ranjith prepares five commandos and sends them to a destination, where Devender is and catch him dead or alive. They are Surya, Sridhar, Vijay, Saleem and Arun. A girl Sandhya joins them in the middle. Sandhya's brother and sister-in-law get killed by one goon called Narasappa. The five commandos help Sandhya take revenge and she accompanies them as their sister. In fact, Devender kidnaps former chief minister (Hemasundar), who ordered Ranjith to arrest him. The commandos' job is to save the ex-CM and at the same time catch Devender dead or alive. When the pressure builds up from higher officials, Ranjith, who was investigating the case, zeroes in on an opposition leader (Narra Venkateswara Rao) and with his help finds, where Devender and the ex-CM were there. Was Ranjith able to save ex-CM? Were all the commandos able to reach the destination? Was Ranjith's wife really killed by Devender or alive? Answers to all these questions form part of the climax.

PLUS: There are very few plus points to be noted in the film. The cinematography in some scenes is worth watching. The director, being a fight master by profession, gave importance to action scenes. There are nine fights composed by six different fight masters. Heroine Ayesha did a good job in action scenes and showed good ease in fights. But for those 45 minutes (nine fights each lasting five minutes or so), the film has nothing to talk about.

MINUS: Though this is the 120th film for Arun Pandyan, he failed to match the expectations of the audiences. There are only two songs in the film and they too are unimpressive. Just because of the presence of artists like Narra, Ali, Hemasundar, Raghunatha Reddy, the audiences could realize that the film is a straight Telugu film. Otherwise, one could come to a conclusion that it is a dubbed movie. Another major drawback in the film is the absence of comedy. There is no comic relief and the comedy track between Narra and Ali failed to show any magic.

REMARKS: Though it was boasted that the film is an action thriller with the efficiency of police department in its backdrop, the director's inability to present the subject on the screen killed the tempo of the film. Neither the screenplay, nor the direction was impressive and there was big mismatch in different scenes. The screenplay was so bad that why and how a fresh villain comes. Moreover, killing four innocent youths, who were in search of kidnapped ex-CM is also pathetic. The director tried his best to say that a policeman should get ready to die in the hands of goons and ultras for the sake of the country. But, he failed go send the message across to the audiences in a perfect and positive way.

Cast: Arun Pandyan, Ramkiran, Vinod, Prabhakar, Sanjay, Pramod Sanghi, Ali, Narra Venkateswara Rao, Ponnambalam, Vallabhaneni Janardhan, Raghunatha Reddy, Hemasundar, Surekhavani, Sairabanu, Ayesha and Swetha.

Credits: Music – Nani and Rajesh, Cinematography – Mohan Chand, Producer – Yohanan Alex, Story, screenplay, action and direction – Vicky Varma.

Banner: Ansi Art Creations

Released on: October 19, 2007

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