In this decade Tamil Cinema has changed the aesthetics of People’s Choice by introducing new genres and making more content driven cinema.
#1 Farmer’s Issue
Many movies were released regarding farmer’s problems and about farmers especially in this decade. Few were commercial ones, few were very serious ones. Kadaikutti Singam, Mersel, Kappan were few Commercial movies which spoke about farmers and their lifestyle. Lelin Bharathi’s Merku Thodarchi Malai was a serious drama movie and the movie revolves around the life and times of a group of landless workers living along the foothills of the Western Ghats in India.
#2 Voicing out for the oppressed class
This trend was a significant one in this decade. There was a time where the social issues related movies were not commercial and only for award seeking. This status was changed by a man called “Pa. Ranjith”. His movies Madras, Kaala spoke about backward community. Following this, Pariyerum Perumal and Asuran voiced castism , even thought it was a serious and sensitive movie, people made it a successful and blockbuster movies. This shows audience’s open mindedness and are welcoming such genres.
#3 Sequel battle
This decade we had sequels until we said no more… The count is not less than 39. Creating a sequel is not an easy job, few mastered and many movies went wrong. The Sequel Battle of this decade started with Enthiran 2.O, followed by Kanchana sequel, Sandakozhi 2 and many more.
#4 Horror Comedies
Can we name this genre Hor-Com ? Cause, it has become a sensational genre in Tamil cinema. The first movie from this genre was Muni, released in 2007. After that, we were bombarded with few dozens : it can be spilled into average, one time watchable and terrible ones. The super hit movies in this genre are Darling, Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuthutu, Kanchana etc.
#5 Promotions and Fandom hysterical
The movie Kabali created a new concept in the film marketing fraternity. Normally an advertisement for a movie will feature the images of the hero, heroine, villain and music director. If the product commercials are a promotion for the movie “Kabali”, the brand owners have leveraged only Rajinikanth’s image in the movie with some movie clippings.However, the brand owners do leverage Rajinikanth’s title ‘superstar’ in their commercials and also his movie image. AirAsia, the official airline partner for “Kabali” announced ‘Fly like a Superstar’ promotion. Cadbury Five Star “Kabali” commercial ends with the tag line ‘Superstar’s Five Star” and many more.
Fandom fights in Twitter is one of the most annoying trends of this decade. The polls and memes created by the berserk-ed fans inorder to support their star went out of hand and started abusing each other.
#6 Delayed Releases
Kollywood stars like Kamal Haasan, Vijay were one of the most inter-linked personalities with political links. This reflected in the delay of their movie releases and ban on their movies also. “Ban on Vishwaroopam” was the initial one followed by Vijay’s movie Kathi, Thuppaki, till Mersal. On the other hand, Dhanush starred ENTP took almost a year to release after the final cut due to lingering financial issues. Simbu starred Vaalu movie was supposed to be released during 2012 Diwali time but it took a very longg delay and released during the year 2015, the delay was due to a financial crunch.
#7 Female-Centric Movies
It’s great to see that modern cinema has given birth to some wonderful female lead characters, starting from English Vinglish starred by Sri Devi in the year 2012. Women-centric movies became an important genre in the Tamil Industry for the last couple of years. From 2018 till now, we got plenty of movies in this genre like Aaram, Kolamaavu Kokila, 36 vayathinile, Aruvi, Game Over , Aadai and many more. This genre got a lift as prominent actress of Tamil Cinema accepted these films and showed interest in these scripts.
#8 Stars working with young minds.
When Super Star of Indian Cinema signed a movie Kabali with Pa.Ranjith, opened the doors for many other young filmmakers to approach the big names. Rajinikanth did back to back movies with Pa. Ranjith. On another hand, the mass hero of Kollywood Cinema, Vijay shook hands with Atlee and did 3 consecutive movies Theri, Mersal and Bigil. Followed by Sensational hit Petta by Rajinikanth with Karthik Subbraj and Kaithi by Karthik with Lokesh Kanagaraj.
#9 Political drama
The political satire-cum-drama not only mocks the state of politics in our country but also took charge of the Tamil film industry. Beyond the humor, it’s sad to see all the mockery that passes for politics around us. Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar, 1997 was a profound work created a new space to work on. And, in this decade we witnessed more in this genre like Ko, Saguni, LKG, Kodi, NOTA..
#10 Dark Comedy
In 2005, when Kamal Haasan made Mumbai Xpress, he was well ahead of his times in bringing back Black comedy to Tamil Cinema. Now we have a really good collection of movies, in which Jigarthanda fetched a National award for Best Supporting Actor and also Best Editor. In this lot, we have, Super Deluxe, Soothu Kaavum, Naduvula Konjam Pakatha Kaanum, Moodar Kudam..
From this, we can say that the dimension of Tamil Cinema has gone to the next level. Subsequently, this has broke the soo called formula and structure of drafting the scripts and gained a wider range of audition through out the world.
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