Palakkad: A day after the shocking murder of an RSS worker at Mambaram here, Arshika, the wife of the deceased while addressing the media claimed that she can recognise the assailants. According to Arshika, the assailants who killed her husband were wearing neither a mask nor any face cover. The crime happened when people were commuting on the road, she said. At that time even a school bus passed through the road, she added.

Kerala Government informed this while considering a petition by Arshika, wife of the slain RSS worker A Sanjith, seeking a CBI probe into the murder.

You may not remember, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was originally supposed to be out by now: May 1, 2020, to be exact. But in 2018, director/writer James Gunn was fired from Disney for really bad old tweets about rape and pedophilia. And for Marvel’s galactic misfits, that firing threw everything out of whack.

For the rest of 2018, a complicated saga brewed about the Guardians 3. While the cast rallied behind their original director, Marvel had discussions about whether or not to use Gunn’s script, and who, if anyone, would replace him. The lack of a director caused production to be put on pause, while Gunn would be snatched up by Warner Bros. for The Suicide Squad and later Peacemaker. He’d become reinstated in 2019, but his full schedule kicked the Guardians further down Marvel’s release schedule. Now rejiggered to be set after the events of Thor: Love Thunder and with Will Poulter’s Adam Warlock among the cast, Guardians 3 is now expected to release on May 5, 2023.

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The decision to hold the release of Rohit Shetty’s most ambitious film till the pandemic went into remission was right. The sound and fury of the film demanded a theatrical release and it’s good that the audiences were not asked to negotiate with two pandemics simultaneously.

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Like its hero, the screenwriters indulge in multiple somersaults to ‘balance’ the narrative but can’t save the Akshay Kumar-starrer from relentlessly planting seeds of suspicion against a particular community.

With Sooryavanshi, Rohit, known for conjuring mindless entertainment and visceral action choreography, attempts to deal with complex issues. He opens with the much-abused Gandhi quote: an eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind, but loses faith midway, and decides to reduce the ‘opponent’ to a pulp.

Much like a section of politicians, the politics of the film uses the shield of our brave policemen to scratch the wounds of the past and cover them with the tape of jingoism. It goes on to tell us that one community moved on but some members of the other faith remained stuck in the past and are now using religion to strike back.

The film wants us to believe that a large number of nationals of the neighbouring country are living around us under a false identity. They marry locals, conduct business and are waiting for the orders of their masters to bleed Indian by plotting a repeat of the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai. Rohit is silent on who is harbouring them, perhaps, it will be the subject of a future film in the franchise. Right now, we can do with the trivia that a prominent member of the sleeper cell in the film is named Mukhtar Ansari.

As for nuance, the film subtly makes a distinction between the long-bearded, short bearded and the clean-shaven Muslim. One who goes to Ajmer is not shown offering prayers, but those who bomb cities pray religiously. And during the climax, with “Chhodo Kal Ki Batein” playing in the background, it provides a guideline for safe existence in the neighbourhood. Really!

What is not so subtle is the constant reminder of the surname of the cop through the background score. One doesn’t know about the cop universe of Rohit but wonder what Vijay Khanna (
Zanjeer ), Anant Velankar (
Ardha Satya ) and Ajay Rathore (
Sarfarosh ) would be thinking!

Every time Riya (Katrina Kaif), perhaps the conscience keeper of the film, reminds her husband Vir Sooryavanshi (Akshay), the one-many army, to have a look at what’s happening in his own ‘house’ and he doesn’t listen, one gets a feeling that it is some meta-reference devised by the writers to tell the audience that we all live in glass houses. Had she been given a little more voice, she might have told Simba, when he gets into a lecture mode during the walloping climax, that terrorism is not just affecting tourism and entertainment in the neighbouring country, we are also facing the heat of hate.

On the surface, Rohit lives up to his strengths. The action is top class, jokes connect and there is no limp in the pacy narrative. Flaunting grey sideburns, and aviators, Akshay, in the Tom Cruise mode, performs a series of whistle-inducing stunts, and his comic timing hasn’t aged. The self-reference jokes reminding him of his age consistently hit the target.

Singham (Ajay Devgn) and Simba (Ranveer Singh) add both muscle and merriment to the climax and till then a robust support cast brings out the layers in the narrative. Gulshan Grover shines as the
evil Usmani and Kumud Mishra makes us empathise with the dilemmas of Bilal Khan. Jackie Shroff, Javed Jafferi and Abhimanyu Singh are not found wanting either. But it is Katrina who surprises in what seems like a typical two-songs, three scenes kind of role. It will go down as one of her most convincing performances.

Overall, it is a Deepawali cracker that lights up the sky but covers the soul with soot.

Sooryavanshi is currently running in theatres

They say that no love is more pure than a dog’s. It is this belief that
Mughizh , an hour-long short film starring Vijay Sethupathi, Regina Cassandra and Sreeja Vijay Sethupathi, subscribes to by and large. But unlike your regular children’s films where the animal is either used as a prop or written unnecessarily into the film to accentuate melodrama, everything in
Mughizh is so gentle that it makes you overlook the plainness of its storytelling. Its gentleness, perhaps, can be attributed to the short looking more like a family rummaging through old photographs and memories that come along, than having attributes of a film.

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And that is done with careful precision to not end up looking like a giant ball of pretence. For starters, it helps that the short has a cute, little pup at the centre, Scooby, who is the actual ‘star’ of the film. But it is not entirely about Scooby. Again, unlike your regular children’s films, Karthik Swaminathan isn’t dealing with a film about love; it is the opposite end of the spectrum: grief.

The accidental death of Scooby puts a family in a tight spot. In an interview with
The Hindu , music composer Revaa said that
mugizh , the title, translates to one of the nine stages of blooming of a flower, at the time when it finally gets its fragrance. The flower in
Mughizh is Kavya (Sreeja Vijay Sethupathi). She is the one who owns the film; it is about her coming to terms with love and grief. Love, because she is averse to dogs and cannot stand it when her father Vijay (Sethupathi) gets friendly with the animal. She discovers what true love could mean, when her father brings home a pup, Scooby.

Though
Mughizh is a sweet film, I wished Karthik had found another, interesting way to stage the dog’s death, even though it makes logical sense how the scene plays out. Similarly, I wished he had found another way to write the resolution which Kavya gets in the end. I understand the constraints of the format, but it felt too easy. But Karthik does something brilliant in the short.

There is a fantastic scene where the parents, Vijay Sethupathi and Regina (Do filmmakers notice her? Do they notice
how good she is?), take a backseat for Kavya to live and swallow the emotion of grief. We also get a fantastic line from Sethupathi: “Let her be alone but we’ll keep the door open. She will come out.” It is like the father is saying, “I know she is suffering and I know we are there for her, but ultimately, it’s
her journey. Only
she can come out of this.”

It is not the job of a film writer to recommend what you should or shouldn’t watch. And this is definitely not a plea. But if you are looking to take your kids out for a movie that would keep them smiling throughout, like it did for me,
Mughizh is a strong suggestion. Also, adhering to the social media etiquette, can we “normalise” having more films with shorter durations, focussing on just one aspect of life, like in
Mughizh ? Perhaps that explains the need for more Vijay Sethupathis too.

Mughizh
is currently playing in theatres

X looks like it will fit right in with the studio’s frightening filmography, which includes modern classics like Hereditary, Midsommar, The Witch, and The Lighthouse.

But theater owners took a different approach, going directly to the liquor authority and arguing a 1987 amendment to the state’s alcoholic beverage control law actually didn’t prevent movie theaters from seeking a license.

“It is imperative that theatres search for new ways to enhance the moviegoing experience, enabling them to offset rising costs, and retain employees,” NATO attorney Theresa Russo wrote to the authority. “Beer and wine sales would create a critical revenue stream to help offset these headwinds.”

Russo, however, did not provide an estimate on the amount of revenue such a change would bring to operators.

Operators still won’t be permitted to sell liquor or mixed drinks to those in the theaters themselves. That remains prohibited by state law.

It will still likely be several weeks or months before movie theaters get the green light to begin serving beer and wine.

Bar and tavern owners have long complained about long wait times for licenses. But under the SLA’s ruling Wednesday, movie theaters can begin the application process immediately.

The SLA’s ruling hinged on section 81 of the state law overseeing alcoholic beverages, which lays out when beer and wine licenses can be issued and to whom. For years, it has been interpreted to prevent such licenses from going to entities that don’t serve chef-prepared food, which ruled out movie theaters.

Under the previous interpretation, movie theaters were only permitted to serve alcohol if there was a table setting for each movie-goer and food prepared by a kitchen. Others had licenses to serve alcoholic beverages in their lobbies, but not the theaters themselves.

But NATO argued that the law as it’s written would allow the state to offer a beer and wine license to movie theaters so long as “food is prepared and served for consumption on the premises” in quantities that are large enough that beer and wine sales are “incidental to and not the prime source of revenue.”

Now, the theater owners will have to file an application for a beer or wine license in the theaters themselves that attests that alcohol is just an “incidental” part of their business model – not the main money driver.

“The only thing I’m going to ask for is in the application there’s a statement in affidavit form that […] you’re absolutely sure this is going to be incidental to the overall business, which is showing movies,” authority Chairman Vincent Bradley said before voting in favor of the request.

After an uncertain year in the film business in 2020, 2021 has seen the rebound of movie theaters and a wave of major releases over the past several months.

From the day-and-date debuts of highly anticipated Blockbusters like Godzilla vs. Kong, Dune, and Black Widow to the long-delayed releases of Candyman, No Time to Die, and A Quiet Place: Part II, there’s been more than enough cinematic goodness to go around, whether it be on the big screen or on your flatscreen. 

When South Korea’s “Parasite” made history by becoming the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, all eyes were set on director Bong Joon-ho.

Bong had famously said the Oscars were “very local.”

South Korean actress Yang Mal-bok, whose new film “The Apartment with Two Women” premiered at the Berlinale in February, says Bong’s sentiments resonated with her.

“I’m a bit tired of the cultural flow that was a bit monopolized in one direction,” Yang told DW.

“I started to think that our tastes in movies were long concentrated on one side and it’s obvious to me that your view expands when you come in contact with a culture or art of a different region, like South Korea,” she said.

But in recent years, audiences worldwide have developed a bigger thirst for Korean cinema.

Rise of South Korea’s cultural economy

The Korean wave — or Hallyu — is a term widely used to describe the international success of South Korean music, film, TV, fashion and food.

In October last year, the Oxford English Dictionary added the Korean word Hallyu to its latest edition.

When asked about Hallyu, Jung Bo-ram, Yang’s co-actress in the “The Apartment with Two Women,” said “It’s the universalist themes of Korean society” which help drive the success of South Korean films abroad.

In her latest movie, Jung plays a woman in her late twenties who lives with her mother. The film centers around their turbulent mother-daughter relationship.

“All mothers and daughters living in South Korea can relate to this story. I thought that this movie is not specific to South Korea but it contains various emotions that you can feel about the relationship of any mother-daughter,” Jung told DW.

“When people watch this movie, they can relate with their own lives.”

‘Your view expands when you come in contact with a culture or art of a different region, like South Korea,’ says Yang Mal-bok (pictured)

South Korean films take world by storm

The success of South Korean films abroad took off in the 1990s — after the last vestiges of its repressive military regimes ended. Censorship laws were eased and investment started trickling into the film business by large Korean companies. 

Investments through conglomerates — or chaebols — like Samsung, Daewoo and Hyundai have all played a major role in the country’s film industry.

Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, new conglomerates like CJ Entertainment, the Orion Group (Showbox), and Lotte Entertainment emerged to become the biggest players in the South Korean movie industry.

In the first decade of Hallyu, international fans, particularly in the US, typically downloaded pirated films while South Koreans studying abroad did the subtitling.

“This was happening long before OTT (over-the-top) platforms and easy subtitling,” Yang explained.

But as her new independent film is touring international film festivals, the actor says South Korean films have finally become “elevated” and that Hallyu is here to stay.

Yang also played a cameo in the South Korean series “Squid Game,” one of streaming giant Netflix’s all-time biggest hits. The nine-part thriller reached 1.65 billion viewers just in its first month of release. 

Yang said she “had no idea” that the series would “become so popular all over the world.”

“It’s obvious that Hollywood has had a huge cultural influence on the world. English-speaking movies are screened in theaters and multiplexes. It’s hard to compete with that but, for two decades now, international independent film festivals have increased opportunities for us to be seen and heard,” Yang said.

• ‘Squid Game’ series breaks all records

  Broken candy, no consequences

  In the “Honeycomb Challenge,” participants have to remove the stamped symbol from a traditional “dalgona” Korean candy by licking or breaking the pre-carved shape out of it with a needle — without destroying it. The Brown Butter Cafe in Singapore organized the challenge for its guests. If they had followed the rules of the survival thriller series, this woman would have been dead.

• ‘Squid Game’ series breaks all records

  Revival of a street food snack

  Jung Jung-soon (right) and her husband Lim Chang-joo (left) prepare dalgona candy at their street stall in Seoul. They were hired during production of the series to make the crisp sweet, also called ppopgi, on set. Since the surprise success of the series, customers have been lining up to buy their snacks. Dalgona street vendors’ sales have doubled.

• ‘Squid Game’ series breaks all records

  Caramelized sugar, baking soda

  Google searches for dalgona recipes have multiplied. On social networks, thousands of users show how to make the sweet. It’s not difficult: heat sugar until it caramelizes, add a pinch of baking soda, stir, flatten it to make the round discs and imprint each with a mold.

• ‘Squid Game’ series breaks all records

  Honeycomb challenge in Abu Dhabi

  The fact that the successful series comes from South Korea is no coincidence. Since the end of the 1990s, the government in Seoul has promoted cultural exports such as music, film and TV as an economic growth industry. It’s been successful, as proven by boy band BTS and the 2019 Oscar-winning film “Parasite.” The Korean Cultural Center in Abu Dhabi (photo) also organized a honeycomb challenge.

• ‘Squid Game’ series breaks all records

  Red light, green light

  There was no dalgona candy at a Netflix promotional campaign in the Philippines — instead, visitors to the Robinsons Galleria Ortigas mall in Manila faced the robot doll from the “Red Light, Green Light” game. The 3-meter-tall (nearly 10-foot) figure warns pedestrians not to cross the street when the light is red. Luckily, unlike in the series, ignoring the warning doesn’t result in getting shot.

• ‘Squid Game’ series breaks all records

  Child’s play

  A man and his daughter play the squid game on a squid-like diagram on the ground in Goyang, South Korea. As the attacker, the dad tries to reach the circle-shaped head at the top, while his daughter tries to stop him. The final game in the series is a classic South Korean children’s game, which is once again enjoying increased popularity among young and old.

  Author: Philipp Böll

Entertainment industry as ‘soft power’

Netflix has announced that it would spend $500 million (€451 million) in 2022 as part of efforts to expand South Korean content.

The pandemic, however, has taken a toll on the film industry. 

“After COVID-19, there is less investment in the entire cinema industry in South Korea, so there might be less opportunity to have auditions for me, but it’s also hard to say if it’s a totally bad situation,” said Jung.  

Local productions, however, still account for a major share in the South Korean market.

The South Korean government considers the entertainment industry a key driver for the future national economy and is heavily investing in films and series from the national budget. One of its main goals is to become the world’s leading exporter and importer of entertainment and media. 

“The Apartment with Two Women” is director Kim Se-In’s debut film and was funded by the Korean Academy of Film Arts.

“I can focus only on making the film. From writing the script to the post-production stage, the Korean Academy of Film Arts has given me every support to blossom,” Kim said. “I don’t have to worry about market and distribution, the academy helps with it.”

Kim won five awards at the Busan International Film Festival in October.

When asked what she thinks is behind the success of South Korean cinema, Yang said the country’s entertainment landscape is adaptable and changes very fast. 

“Media produces new content very fast. It’s tricky to pick up only one reason why cultural content from South Korea becomes popular. Perhaps it is a wave and South Korea is at the center of it.”

Edited by: Sou-Jie van Brunnersum