Cooper

Just watched India’s new Epic #Ramayana directed by #NiteshTiwari, finally in its original Hindi version. And yeah, #RamayanaRiseOfALegend is both anime come to life (if you ever watched #SHURATO, get ready!!!) and a classic EPIC with capital letters, like those magnificent Hollywood gems of the 50s & 60s, with that grandeur, lavishness & sheer scale, made with today’s technology which allowed it to go the extra mile technically impossible to pull off back in the day. To me, it felt like a full circle. Curiously, it wasn’t India, but Japan which prepared me to enjoy this story as much as I did. As a child, anime #SaintSeiya made me fall in love with Greek mythology, and because of that anime, I was presented with another mythology based anime #SHURATO, which introduced me to the rich Hindu mythology and the fascinating conflicts between the divine people of Deva and the Asuras. Watching this film made me go back to my childhood in a sense. #Ramayana itself follows the exact same narrative & visual structure of a classic shonen anime, abusing of slow motion, larger than life battles, color, loud, incredible scores, lots of drama, fantastic beings, an underdog which ends up corrupted by manipulative parents to become a badass, overpowered demigod nemesis blinded by rage and thirst for revenge, pitted against a virtuous, righteous hero, which happens to be chosen as an avatar of an ancient God. And as in an anime, both will face several challenges before actually facing each other, because their face off is the end game. And obviously, the virtuous hero has an even more virtuous girl who becomes the plot device which will finally force the eminent future showdown. So if you love anime, and if you love anime structure, there is no way you won’t be at least entertained by 3h15min of one of the most well realised “anime to live-action adaptation” wannabe. And if like #Dune, #StarWars, #GameOfThrones, #LordOfTheRings or even #TheOdyssey, so much here shall feel familiar to you. The legend of Prince Rama is so ancient, with all its kingdoms, celestial & hellish worlds, and well defined characters, that basically every western epic, mythology or fantasy has borrowed - or straight up stolen - elements from it. There are iconic scenes of #ChristopherNolan’s #TheOdyssey for instance that you’ll see also here almost shot by shot, only difference being #Ramayana does it more colourfully and with Prince Rama instead of Odysseus. The visuals are incredible, apart from the CGI giants and monsters which look awful, specially their faces. They really look like late 2000’s videogame creatures, taking you out of the movie everytime they show up, specially when they talk. Which is funny because there are other VFX creatures and sceneries which look insane, such as the vulture #Jatayu. I really couldn’t understand why the giants and orcs-like guys looked so off, while everything else, even in a same scene, looked spotless. And as I said before, #Ramayana has an anime-series structure, not the traditional Hollywood 3-arc film structure in which things get progressively bigger. Most of the spectacle in the film are concentrated at the beginning, then it gives space for more drama as it progresses. And the way the film ends is literally anime-like cliffhanger for next season/saga, not a typical closure. So for a casual moviegoer, it might feel like the film ends smaller, instead of in a higher note than when it started. Or they might feel like it drags on its 2nd half, which has less epicness / lavishness than the first. It might be an uneven experience for first timers or for who has the Hollywood structure as a dogma. But to me, #Ramayana felt like a homecoming somehow, in which so many of cultural niche things I love came together like the heroes in the end of #AvengersEndgame. India never left the historical/legend EPIC genre behind, and #Ramayana shows how far we can now go with them. #Ramayana is already in theatres worldwide.