Dashavatar: A review
Posted on April 17, 2009
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 Dashavatar is a Hindi version of Tamil blockbuster Dasavtharam. Star cast of the film includes Kamal Hassan (a big star in South India), Jaya Prada (Bollywood star cum politician), Mallika Sherawat (Bollywood hottie) and the film is directed by K.S. Ravi Kumar. Ghajini girl Asin Thottumkal is in a double role. This film will be worth watching as Kamal Hassan is a power house of talent who will be playing ten different characters in this film and each character will be having nothing in common with each other. Jaya Prada is excellent in her role and as usual Mallika is quite an entertainer in this film too. It’s a fiction film which will cover the era of the past, present and the future. The film, which took three years to get completed was pegged at over Rs. 100 crore and was shot in eight foreign locations which including America, England, Japan, Malaysia etc. In India, the film was shot in Tamil Nadu, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The advertisement budget alone took up a stupendous Rs 6 crores. Coming to the further details of the film, I will definitely  not reveal the story line as it will be unfair to do so. I would like to give a basic idea of the film.
Kamal Hassan -- A Brahmin
 The story of the film takes us in ancient times (12th century) of evil kings and heroic Brahmins (Kamal Hassan) then interestingly, it fast-forwards to 2004. Coming to the present era, it shows a computer chip containing a vicious biological material which goes missing from a laboratory in the United States. An in-house scientist Govinda (Kamal again) who is aware of the dangers of the material makes a hunt for the missing material and his journey takes him to India. In the course of the hunt for the missing chip, Kamal takes on eight more characters and travels to many continents. From here, the film goes to a time when the whole world is on the brink of a biological warfare waged by terrorists. Actively opposing them is the American president who urges the rest of the world to combat this evil.  In his very own words, the director says  ”The film is part fantasy, part-sci-fi, part-action adventure, part-crime-thriller, part-disaster movie etc. So huge is its canvass that it almost spans the entire globe right from America to India and even Japan”. Dashavatar director K.S. Ravi Kumar tells us why the mega budget entertainer is a must see.
Kamal Hassan - A modern man
“The film is a thrill ride with its spine-tingling action, including an airplane chase and also a car chase. It took us 280 days to complete the film. All of Kamal Haasan’s ten characters took around twenty days each to shoot, adding up to 200 days in all. The audience expect a lot from this movie and it has come out well enough to live up to that.” K.S. Ravi Kumar tells. ”While making the film, money has been spend like water but for this film we have also spent a lot of money ‘on’ water as well for the Tsunami sequence”.  The various faces, the body language, the way he (Kamal Haasan) walks, his costumes, his gestures, his speech,the languages he uses, everything will be different for the ten roles and you get an opportunity to see these ten different roles in one film.Kamal Haasan came to cinema at five and at fifty he is still here and he will be here when he is hundred as well.” says Ravi Kumar.Â
The super star of south India Kamal Hassan has appeared in Bollywood (Hindi) films earlier which have all done reasonably well. (I remember watching his super duper hit film “EK TUJE KE LIYE” as a child during the 80′s and till date I remember each and every scene of the film and the lovely songs). He started his acting career at a very tender age of five and at fifty he is still  going strong as a hero. This man for sure must be having super calibre and charisma, as he has already completed 45 years in this cut throat competitive film profession. The talented actor is a perfectionist and gives a lots of importance to the script of the film while accepting a film.
Kamal Hassan with his leading ladies
Let us see what super star Kamal Haasan has to  tell us about Dashavatar, “If I start telling about Dashavatar, it will take 2 years to tell you the story because every day, every word mattered. We started with just 25 days for the first schedule of the film, which had no shooting, no acting. It was just for the make-up tests 25 days in the US. 20 days, 12 hours a day, and then 5 days of taking photographs. When we came back with the photographs, people believed more in Dashavatar including the producer, the director and myself. Till date nobody outside of the unit has seen any of these photographs. To cut it short, to cut to the chase as we call it. If you want to get a glimpse of all the hard work we did, you will have to come and see it on the big screen.â€
Kamal Hassan -A rock star
Readers, I am quite  convinced to watch this film as the story line, photography, starcast of the film and the global shooting of the film all these together sounds great and very exciting to me. Sounds bit different then the  regular stereo type Bollywood films. I suppose watching Dashavatar should be some  value for your money and time.
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