7aum Arivu exploits that tension and creates a Chinese villainy that is cartoonishly evil. Tension between India and China is always high, largely due to territorial disputes as well as India's support of the Dalai Lama. To antagonize the not-so-happy couple, the film employs some particularly evil Chinese villains, led by Vietnamese actor Johnny Tri Nguyen as Dong Lee. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of this part of the film, and it wasn't a fault of the performers involved, it was the plotting that was just like a lead weight holding the film back. Arvind and Subha's relationship is played for cheap laughs until it goes horribly awry in a miraculously coincidental way. I have yet to see an Indian film, even a pure action film, without a romance, and I think if ever there was a need to skip it, 7aam Arivu would be a prime example. Their relationship is complex, however, the romantic complications that are woven into the plot serve no purpose other than to pad the film and provide a romantic interest story. All it does is set up an elaborate relationship between Suriya's character, Arvind, and his co-star, Shruti Hassan's Subha Srinavasan. This sequence lasts for almost an hour, and we come to find out that all of this stuff is entirely unnecessary. He juggles, he performs on a unicycle, stuff like that. Suriya next appears to us as a circus performer, a part of a traveling show which has found a temporary home in Chennai. Unfortunately, once this sequence ends we spend a lot of time learning things we don't need to know. It is relatively brief, but the action is fast and heavy, and takes some turns you wouldn't expect. This flashback also brings the first major action sequence which is among the best I've seen in Indian cinema. Suriya as Bodhidharma is a powerful and benevolent force for pure good, even when the strangers in his new Chinese home are wary of him. This 20 minute sequence is astonishingly beautiful and heartfelt. and to the life of Bodhidharma, the Tamil prince of antiquity who brought both Buddhism and, according to legend, the martial arts to China. One of the film's great strengths is the beautifully shot and wonderfully evocative prologue. Despite his intention to open up Tamil cinema to new international audiences, Murugadoss becomes so bogged down in masala conventions that it can become hard to appreciate the special things about this film. However, in between the truly refreshing and exciting stuff, 7aam Arivu is padded with typically masala styled fluff that does nothing to move the film forward and at times even opens up sub-plots that never get any closure. I can satisfactorily say that the film and its ideas are very interesting, and that it attempts to explore those ideas in a novel way. AR Murugadoss' latest epic, 7aam Arivu, brings satisfaction in waves, but not consistently enough to be considered a complete success.
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