Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1

Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1 (2022)

Runtime: 167 minutes

Directed by: Mani Ratnam

Starring:  Vikram, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Karthi, Jayam Ravi, Trisha Krishnan

From: Several Indian companies

I have several Indian followers/Indian film fans; about time I served those masters. There’s no shortage of movies that can be seen in America w/ little effort, yet the easy availability of everything else I’m interested in plus how long most those pictures are means that this only happens once in awhile. This Tamil-language picture was chosen as I heard it wasn’t the bats--- insanity of RRR (as fun as that is, variety is the spice of life) but instead was a “historical action” movie based on a 1950’s novel where they tried to bring it to screen pretty much since then, only happening in these modern times. Of course, this still has multiple scenes of one dude beating up many at the same time & the finale is still rather OOT.

The setting is the 10th century and I understand is loosely based on real-life events. It sounds simple on the surface (in the Chola kingdom, there are political machinations, so the Emperor’s son tasks his buddy with delivering a message to his sisters) but of course it is more complicated as presented. A lot happens-none of which I dare spoil-none of which is difficult to follow despite the surplus of characters. Various entities wish to rule the Chola kingdom, and I’ll leave it at that. One surprising comparison I’ll make-and others have made: you may be reminded of… Braveheart.

Most of the actors I was not familiar with (the one name big to me: the still-lovely Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) but nonetheless this was a solid production which at times has great lighting-including the musical numbers-and despite some improbable action beats, the overall production was relatively grounded. The director (Mani Ratnam) is a veteran around for decades who gave us a serious crime movie well worth tracking down-1987’s Nayakan. Part 2-which concludes the story-is already on Prime; one day I’ll give that a whirl to see how this epic ends.