Directed by: Murugadoss

Starring : Suriya, Shruti Haasan, Johnny Tri Nguyen

Music by: Harris Jayaraj

This movie titled 7th sense, sets out to satisfy your remaining 6 senses!

What amazes me time and again is one lingering question. How did Murugadoss (Director) think of such a storyline? Maybe he would have gone on a casual trip to China. He would have visited the Shaolin temples and the giant statues of “Bodhidharma”. To his surprise he would have read a sculpted note below these statues stating that Bodhidharma was a “King from South India” ! Bang! “That’s my next big movie idea”, he would have thought! Add some commercial elements, appeal to the “Tamil” feeling and you have a block-buster movie!

The first 30 minutes depicting the life and contribution of the Pallava king who travelled to China and taught them healing and self defense is a treat to watch. Surya gets that serene and en-lightened look with great ease. He looks stunning and worth every rupee that the producers spent on the movie.

The movie loses its appeal and grip on the narrative as it reaches the present day from the magical past of Bodhidharma. The plot goes like this – China is plotting a Bio-War against India. The Chinese send a Shaolin arts expert, Dong Li (Johnny Tri Nguyen) to spread the virus in India. The Chinese also feel that the genetic research done by Subha Srinivasan (Shruti Haasan) to bring back the skills of Bodhidharma through his current day descendant (Surya)  might disrupt their effort to spread the virus in India. Bodhidharma was the one who taught the Chinese on how to counter the virus back in 6th century. Amazing plot ! Don’t you think?

On paper, the plot looks new, however how does one translate this into screenplay? This is where the movie does not live up to the world-class standard. We have a script that is a genius and can compete with commercial movies world-wide, however the compulsion of six songs, larger than life action sequences makes this an ordinary movie towards the end. Hypnotism plays spoil-sport in the second half, in the sense that it works faster than a bullet is too exaggerating. One should understand that we have educated audiences watching the movie. Give some arms and ammunition to the bad-guy, use his Shaolin skills, if he runs out of all this, then use hypnotism as his last weapon. The director, in his quest to create different action sequences ends up doing silly stuff without any depth.

Surya is clear abour his role right from the beginning to the end. The role of Bodhidharma could be his best on-screen character till date. Shruti Haasan looks dashing in the movie, she tries hard to speak in tamil. Her dialogue delivery looks as if she memorized the dialgoues just 5 mins before and wants to get them across somehow, making her look less convinced about the entire imagination of the plot. .

Kudos to the imagination, boos to the screenplay! Definitely worth a watch.

Varun Mannava Gowtham