Now, I have seen my share of remakes to comment on the latest remake "Kanden Kadhalai", a remake of the hindi movie "Jab we met", that is supposed to be rocking the theatres. I watched the movie and I didn't like it at all. First of all, let me make it clear - I am not the kind of person that encourages remakes. I don't think any of the movies that are remade can capture the essence of the original one. Maybe, this is why I didn't like the movie...I don't know. But seriously guys, come on! Kanden Kadhalai was so "wanna-be"! I know it was a remake...but do remakes necessarily need to copy everything including the costumes, sets and the dialogues? I loved Jab we met. To the core! Maybe, that was another reason I didn't like the idea of it being remade.
Jab we met was the Perfect Synonym of a romantic comedy. The actors were perfect in doing their jobs. Not only the lead actors, but even the extras did not over-act or do anything to slow down the pace of the film. The dialogues were hilarious. The songs were amazing. Especially, Tum se hi. The picturization of the song was perfect! And last but not the least, the heart-melting chemistry of Shahid and Kareena was like an icing on the cake! All these things were missing in the remake.
KK was a big disappointment to me. The magic was missing. Now, I have to be fair. So let me accept that Tamanna's performance was fine. (I was actually surprised by that!) Bharath disappointed me, big time! I am not saying I expected a replica of Aditya Kashyap in front of me. (I know that is not possible :) ) But Shakti did not have even one of the remotest qualities of Aditya. Bharath's expressions were bland and his dialogue delivery lacked conviction. The chemistry of Anjali and Shakti, sadly did not live up to my expectations. I cannot blame everything on the actors too. The dialogues were a major let-down. In the process of changing the punjab-based dialogues to tamil nadu-based ones, (for eg. "Sikhdi hoon mein bhatinda ki" - "Naan thenikaara ponnakum, seeviduven seevi") the dialogue writer forgot that it was supposed to be a romcom. The dialogues were simply a translation of the hindi ones. Unfortunately, some dialogues which were great in Hindi were awkward and did not sound good at all in Tamil. One of the dialogues that bothered me greatly was - "Good, kyunki chillar nahi hain mere paas - "Nalladhu, yena en kitte paisa ille". Man! It was tough to sit through the movie, hearing such blatant translations of what was absolutely great in Hindi, but were a major flop in Tamil. Also, the scene with the Station master, the scene in Hotel Decent, the scene in which Manjeet sees them hugging and Kareena's "Oh no, Manjeet!"... were ever-green in Hindi, but failed to capture people's interests in Tamil. And the last scene was so dramatic. Anjali stopping the train, Shakti getting out of a running train were all so "Kollywood". Even Vidyasagar's music was not as 'ear-catching' :D as Pritam's. The background score was pretty okay, though.
You know, people tried to convince me into accepting that the movie was good by asking me to forget about Jab we met and watching the movie "objectively". Yeah, right! It was simply not possible. When every costume, every dialogue and even every set reminded me of the original, how in hell am I supposed to forget about Jab we met? The only new addition was Santhanam and for people who have watched Jab we met, Santhanam's comedy would probably be a treat, because that is the only thing that is different from JWM!
