. @equanimus To elaborate what I meant about the Myshkin fights being neither here nor there....

To a casual observer, like yours truly, there are there are two distinct changes in TFI stunt styles over time.

One where a hyperstylized stunt choreography has been totally abandoned in favour of greater 'realism'. Bala-StunSiva come to mind. And you can see this now in many many 'ordinary' films where 'katti puraNdu saNdai pOduthal' is shown as is.

The old 'biff','pow' punch sounds are morphing or even being abandoned in favour of location-based clatter. In fact, the locations are being used exceedingly well than ever before in Tamil films in these stunts. The editing, camerawork seem to stitch up together and produce a great effect.

And mind you, it isn't all being-in-the-scene alone. There is a good degree of cinematic aestheticization that they manage to blend in here. Eg. the theatre fight in Subramaniyapuram is all location and the camera jostling to capture it, but the final frame a bucket is presumably hurled on the victim, whose legs are all that are visible to us.

The other way is retaining the fantasy-choreography element and still creating a higher impact. This is not a marked departure and something that has been gradually happening.

I was watching Honest Raj last night and there is a sequence where Vijayakanth jumps on an approaching car from the front. It was shot with a ground level cam (Myshkin style :-) ) moving forward with the car almost till Vijayakanth jumps on to the bonnet, top etc. The way it is shot and cut is quite seamless (his aasthaana Rocky Rajesh I think).

If you think about it, it is quite different from famous stunts of the 80s which was about a relatively static spectacle. Spectacle but nevertheless static. Even gimmicky. Think Kamal's bench fight in 'thoongAdhE thambi thoongAdhE'.

And they make no bones about it being a 'fantasy'. (Prabhu's dance-y fight in your favourite Guru Sishyan).

But gradually in the 90s you see a sleight of hand, where with 'sheer' intensity they want the audience to believe the fight is real while retaining the classical choreographed feel too. Looking at Vijayakanth's (and not Arjun's - it is useful to announce this to the world again and again) fights over time will give us a clearer sense of this.

Even the 'gimmicky' fights had to feel 'real' - the nammavar blade fight for instance (ஓங்கி உட்டேன்னா...சைட்லேர்ந்து பார்த்தாலும் சிரிக்கிற மாதிரி இருக்கும் LOL).


And it got further and further. The most recent and memorable example is the Tamil Ghajini, which incidentally is by oldtimer Super Subbarayan. I think he was left back when they went to Hindi and they opted for Peter Hein - who is actually quite a good representative of this 'school' (if I may call it that).

Needless to say, the thrill of speed has (inevitably) gotten further: further ahead - the beachside fight between the two pancake-faces in the Dasavatharam climax, yEzhAm aRivu etc. Precision and pace advancing more and more.

We 'have always imported (even the TTT benchfight is Jackie Chan' methinks) but executing smoothly is no joke. The fights and chases in Ayan - regardless of the heaviness of the inspiration - are definitely a milestone in terms of execution in a Tamil film.

While at it, let me observe that this is out of scope for the Ajiths and Vijays of the world (and while at it I might as well say Rajini's fights do nothing to me - he is hopelessly stuck in the 80s). Of course, now there are a lot of films with some unimaginative wire-fu too - that is inevitable. But TFI has kind of evolved its own variety in stylized choreography.

From what little I have seen of Telugu, I don't think this is the case there. It only looks like tacky early 90s plus gimmicks, even today. Tamils seem to have taken the ball and sprinted with it.

It is in this context that I say the fights in AnjAdhE and Yudhdham Sei are neither here nor there.
It is as if Myshkin refuses to acknowledge the changes from the 80s to 90s to now, doesn't understand the higher bar on believability now and wants to execute some independent fantasy (possibly it is exactly that, which appealed to you).

We know he's got some weird ideas, like his guilt about kuththupAttu - I want to read this along with that. "Ok if I have to put in a fight - this is how I do it". Like he is apologetic for how it 'compromises' his reality and yet wants to go through with it somehow.

Didn't click for me one bit.

It'll be interesting to see what he does in Mugamoodi.

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