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Flops galore, soft porn rules in Kerala

Ironically, when the whole nation is looking at Kerala as a state which produces class films and artistes who win national awards, the film industry is reeling under the soft porn wave that is finishing off good films and superstars who fail at the box-office. Thirty films released in the first half of the year had only one mega hit and five average hits and this shows how bad the industry is doing. Today the most sought after heroine is a voluptuous Shakeela whose soft porn film Kinnarathumbikal ran to full houses.

Narasimhamam , a mega hit, had Mohanlal in role of a toughie on a vendetta tale. Packed with action and punchy dialogues, the film ran for 200 days without any drop in collections. It was directed by Shaji Kailas who is known to have directed similar films and this film is yet another vendetta tale but the box-office collections shows it to be the highest grosser ever with Rs. ten crores being the profit of the producer. Here again comes another wonder. The producer is none other than the aide and driver of Mohanlal. The star who had to over bear losses after the production of his Vanaprastham and Olympian Antony Adam was instrumental in making his driver a producer and now the driver is Kerala’s biggest movie Moghul.

The next biggest hit is Kinarathumbikal, a soft porn film directed by RJ Prasad. The film ran to full houses and a vamp who was once discarded by the industry played the heroine. Today she is charging Rs. 50,000 per day for her call sheet and is busy shuttling from location to location. Recently a film Rakilikal with Shakeela in the main bombed. The reason: she was present only in ten percent of the film and so her fans were dissatisfied. The fact that today director RJ Prasad and Shakeela are the most sought team after the Shaji Kailas-Mohanlal duo shows the state of affairs of the industry.

Life is Beautiful and Sraddha, directed by Fazil and IV Sasi respectively, with Mohanlal bombed. Hence today Sibi Malayil, who is to direct Lal, is a very nervous man because the talk around town is that Lal has become a Rajnikant who will be accepted only in superstar roles, doing super human kind of action.
Mammootty, the first mega star of Kerala is in an even worse state with only a Lohitadas-directed Arayanamgalude Veedu being an average hit. Now he is banking on Valiyaettan, directed by Shaji Kailas to bring him back to the limelight.

When Suresh Gopi had four flops this year, he was hit by a bout of depression till Satyameva Jayate released. Yet it did not lift his spirits since in Satyameva Jayate too he is playing an honest cop fighting against the corrupt, the kind of role he has done umpteen times.

Kunchacko Boban who starred in mega hit Niram last year has so far proved to be an average crowd-puller at the box-office with one flop Ingane Oru Nilapakshi and one average hit Priyam.

Only Jayram seems to be doing well as always with most of his films being average hits. Except for Millennium Stars which bombed, two of his films Kochu Kochu Santoshangal and Devinthente Makan fared average at the box-office. Dilip and Mukesh are just add on to the film.

In the case of heroines, the situation is even more dismal. Divya Unni who is now doing about eight films in Tamil had only release in Kerala with Mark Antony that bombed.

Samyuktha Verma who started out with a bang last year was unlucky to star in two films, Life is Beautiful and Kochu Kochu ... and both did no wonders for her career. In fact Kavya who acted in Kochu Kochu ... has signed many films. Among the new lot, Abirami has caught lot of media attention after being paired with Lal in Sraddha.

Ishwarya who played the heroine in Narasimhamam and Satyameva ..., both were superhits, should be termed the numer uno of Kerala film industry but both these films were hero-dominated and Ishwarya did not have much of a role in the these films. However some sentimental producers think that Ishwarya is a lucky heroine and make a beeline for her. Vani Vishwanath is slowly proving to be the Vijay Shanti of Kerala film industry with her films doing well at the box-office. Shot at a modest budget and no frills except for the action scenes, Vani’s films give the producers a decent margin when it runs in the B&C theatres. Her film Indriyam which is a horror story had a good run and it too helped to keep her slot intact.

The Kerala film industry is caught in a trap where the top directors don’t seem to be knowing what the public wants. The audience taste seems to have changed from very subject based stories to films which just satisfies them for two hours. An oft-repeated theme in Narasimhamam which was done earlier by the same director and hero runs to packed houses while Fazil’s film on a relationship between a husband-wife and sister-in-law is rejected. Action directors and choreographers who took a backseat in Malayalam films have suddenly become all important. The changing taste is reflected when Alai Payuthe, Kandukondain Kandukondain, Kushi and Vaalarasu run to packed houses in Kerala which once rejected Tamil films for its overdose of music and action and less of storyline.

With work becoming scarce, many artistes and regular producers who do not want to do soft porn have turned to TV serials.

Many film directors have started directing serials and except for the three superstars, most of the artistes too are on the small screen. With small screen growing in size, the film industry, trying to look around for scapegoats, came to the conclusion that film clips and songs trailors shown on TV were the reason for the films to bomb. Typically, one section of the industry namely the directors, decided to fight against the ban imposed by the combine of distributors, exhibitors and producers. Ban imposed on violators were lifted and still the diktat continues says the combine. Artistes drawing more than Rs. 50,000 as wages in films should not act in TV serials says the combine but the artistes have not cared to listen.

While 25 films flopped in the last six months, the salaries of artistes have risen phenomenally. Directors ask for audio rights which come in the range of Rs. 20 to Rs. 35 lakhs as payment and extra cash. Stars take up cash as well as overseas rights as wages.

Star nites abroad are a great money spinners and shootings are postponed till these stars come back from their trips. While producers are sulking, TV serial makers are celebrating the success of their products.

Ayyappa Prasad