Which brings us back to the basic problem plaguing this, and indeed most films today – the writing. He is expectedly good in action and looks menacing enough. The man playing Dong Lee, the Chinese villain, also does his bit. 7 Aum Arivu will go a long way in erasing memories of her in that disaster named Luck. She looks ethereal in Indian clothes, is extremely camera friendly, and seems to have had absolutely no problem dubbing for herself in Tamil. Surprisingly, even Shruti Haasan is a revelation in this film.
Add to this the fact that he dances like a dream and is supremely confident doing any kind of action. He exudes a charm and genuineness that many Indian viewers are not used to seeing. If there is anything that all that marginally redeems the film in its entirety, it is Surya. Along the way, it also finds time to have Chinese people speak English in an accent that would make people believe that the ‘Britishers’ in Sanjay Khan’s Tipu Sultan were actually from Britain. Once the film shifts to the present, it begins to meander around pointless songs, embarrasses the scientific community with hare-brained theories about genetic engineering and descends into near-right wing Tamil pride preachiness. But I couldn’t stop wondering that if the diminutive, almost inconsequential looking Murugadoss could have the vision to execute what I saw in the initial reels of 7 Aum Arivu, what stops the Hindi film industry from doing the same? That the Tamil film industry is technically at par with and organizationally miles ahead of its Hindi counterpart is no secret. Still, I couldn’t shake the first twenty minutes of the film from my head even hours after the screening.
Thereafter, however, the film nosedives into mediocrity like Ra.One’s second week box-office collections. With the arresting visuals, impressive production and VFX, and a unique concept with roots in history, the opening reels of the film laid a promising foundation for a smart, action-packed sci-fi thriller. How much of it was actually post-production would make an interesting topic for a debate though. Every grain on the surface of the film stock used seemed to have been milked for whatever it was worth, to produce some exquisite shots, used primarily in montage. Chandran’s cinematography in these portions can only be described as stunning.
Set just centuries after Christ in ancient India and China, the film opens almost like a documentary on the origins of the Shaolin clan.