Feb 16, 2009 02:32 AM
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The film was a far much better remake than Kuselan and Kathanayakudu. In those versions, Pee Vasu tried to glorify mentalkanth for an hour while at the same time shoehorn in Vadivelu's vulgar and double entendres.
Add in Nayantara's on-the-border dance act and you end up seeing a totally bad version of Kadha Parayumbol.
Having seen Kadha twice (once before Kuselan, and right before Billu), I can safely say it's not a direct by direct remake. Firstly, the college tutor (played by Mukesh in the Malayalam version) was cut off for time but smartly, Priyan roped in Manoj Joshi to do one of the over-smart school administration roles.
In Kuselan/Kathanayakudu, the role was chopped off and replaced by even waste of space in the form of DCP Prabhu Ganesan and Manobala, which had no impact to the story at all. At the same time, Pee Vasu also chopped off the Bard Poet (Rajpal Yadav in the hindi/Comedian Salim Kumar in the original) in his versions just to reserve it for Mental and Nayantara.
Unlike the Tamil/Telugu versions, Priyan's done a good job incorporating the smart and subtle dialogues as well as the humor, which is usually loud in his past films. Even the most-talked Climax was really well done and I was touched by it as I was when Mammooty did the same in Malayalam.
Irfan Khan tops the film and is a class actor. Even Lara Dutta shines well for a de-glam role. Om Puri, Rajpal Yadav, Asrani and others do well in their roles. SRK lives up to being the superstar role and brings the actor in him in the climax. Unlike mentalkanth, SRK gives more space to Irfan as it's his film as Mental refused to do it for Pasupathi/Jagapathi Babu.
Pritam's music is decent. Maybe the Priyanka version of Khudhaya Khair could've been chopped off as well as Love Mera Hit Hit. But the rest fit the film and don't deviate from the story as the Tamil/Telugu versions didn't. Khudhaiya Khair and Jahoon Kahan were my picks.
But overall, Billu gave me that "Virasat" vibe. Intially it starts out empty, but word of mouth should pick up. But still, watch Kadha Parayumpol for it's rendition of true friendship. Priyan should be credited for giving the remake a new feel.
