Mirchi (*ing Prabhas, Richa Gangopadhyay, Anushka Shetty)

I just finished watching the last half hour of Mirchi (Chili - hot, quick to anger, spicy) with Prabhas -- and of course Sathyaraj.

I am kind of shell shocked. If you care about spoilers don't read on, but I have to pour out my thoughts about this movie.  

Remember in Chennai Express all the threatened violence of South Indians? It's all in this movie. All of it -- with machetes no less.

I had heard I guess that it was an action flick but didn't really know what I was getting in for. It's not like Dabangg or something with crime lords or gangsters -- it's really, at heart a family drama. A Romeo and Juliet type of thing with two warring families and their two neighboring villages.

The movie starts as a romance in Italy, and the girl, Manasa, tells Prabhas, I can't be with you because I'm from this horrible backward violent village and no one will accept you as an outsider and you could be killed. It's better for me to leave you now before we get more involved.

Then Prabhas goes back to India, and befriends this bully at a college. He worms his way into this guy's life, gets him a girlfriend, softens his edges and gets invited back home. It's all very Raj in DDLJ. Aaaaah. This is the girl's brother!! He makes everyone in the house happier. He hangs out in the kitchen helping. On and on. Tries to spread love and happiness everywhere. All good.

Then he hears that the evil violent uncle in the house is going on a raid of the neighboring village. He puts on a scarf around his head hiding his face, and defeats everyone, saving the rival village people. Huh?

The girl, Manasa, tells him she loves him, and the family is about to ask him to be their son-in-law. THEN he tells Manasa, you say you love me, but you don't know me. I'm actually the son of your family's enemy. Duh Duh DUH. All very Romeo and Juliet. Huge flashback about his background that takes half the film.

Turns out he was banished but was almost married to a girl, Vennela, from his home village. His whole goal is to change people and stop the feud -- from the inside of the enemy's house.

So there are horrific fights -- WITH MACHETES and blood flying everywhere. I mean, I said, "OH MY GOD!" out loud several times watching it. More blood spraying than Baahubali, it felt like. There was a huge fight at his wedding or engagement or whatever it was with blood everywhere, and his mother gets killed in the melee which is why his peace-loving father had banished him for reigniting the feud.

The end of the movie has his identity revealed. Huge fight where he doesn't fight back, but screams, "I'm just trying to show you LOVE!" "Can't you ever CHANGE!"

It's like the movie was trying to show the evil of these blood feuds -- while at the same time, showing how cool the fights are with slow-mo blood flying from machetes. It shows the horrific aftermath and the emotional toll.

But in the end he is ends the feud between the families, is accepted back with his father and gets his original fiance. But the poor girl whose house he's been living in, Manasa, the original romance shown to us, is just left there. She gives him a little nod to give him leave to go back to his true love, but I was like, WHA?? There were so many unexpected twists and turns for me in this movie!

I mean, the movie has this positive message, and yet he had to lie to this girl, and romance her, spend one whole song sequence leering at her curves and get her hopes up and he was still in love with the girl back home? It felt very weird. He's a good guy, a super hero level fighter, but yet..... the questions linger. As a viewer, you were so invested in him winning over the girl's family for the first half of the movie, Raj of DDLJ style, and then you get another half of the movie with a completely different adorable romance and .......




But aside from my feeling weird that my investment in a romance was thwarted, Prabhas was very good in this. Adorable really with a much better wardrobe than his previous rom com films I'd seen. And bad ass. Except that the first fight happens while he is wearing a keytar. That was odd. It's difficult for anyone to look bad ass wearing a keytar:





I may have to buy this one on DVD. It was a great HD copy on Youtube with subtitles, but I need to watch this again, and think about it some more.

It has this fantastic scene where he proposes to his true love -- the girl Vennela in the flashback. There is a message, too, in the movie about girls having a choice, and once Prabhas gets a village leader to let a poor village girl go to college. So some positive points about women.......and yet, I'm still perplexed about him lying to that girl, Manasa.  Did he target her from the beginning??  Or did he think it was hopeless with his banishment and he WAS trying to start over??   If anyone else has seen this film, what do you think?

South Indian films are so confusing!!!