Review of Unnai Ninaithu

Introduction

Unnai Ninaithu (Just Thinking of You), is Vikraman`s latest blockbuster after Vanthapola (2001). Vikraman a leading Tamil director who is responsible for continuing the tradition of using both melodrama and moral tales for Tamil cinema, makes no changes in his filmmaking skills for this title. As always with his films you get a straightforward story mixed with a wonderful music score, fine performances and a happy ending. What makes this predictable Indian story so gripping for its audiences in its viewing is the manner that shows simplicity in the mise-en-scene the film has.

This is actor`s Surya`s first film after the excellent Nandhaa (2001), which had changed his career for the better. With Surya is actress Laila, who also was from the film Nandhaa, and their roles are quite different this time around. The way they are able to act in these two films, that was shot close together, shows vast improvements and acting skills that they possess in such a short time.

The score by Sirpy is one that is catchy and memorable. I still hum the song of "Sil Sil" and "Chock-let" days after I have seen the film. I only wished the way the songs was filmed was a bit better.

Despite it being quite watchable the film still has its flaws, like the unfunny separate comedy track, that some might find highly racist and sexist. Also a few minutes could have been edited to make the film more tighter in its pace. Yet despite these minor problems, I found this movie to be an enjoyable fare. However I doubt it will sit in the same manner for a more western orientated audience whose expectations in films are a little higher.

Video

The DVD is presented in a cropped aspect ratio of 2.25:1 that is anamorphically encoded. Some cropping is seen in a few minutes of film, like during the credits. I still don`t understand why Ayngaran DVD`s are not presented in its original aspect ratio. I would suspect that this might be a problem due to overscanning, while they encode the film from digi-beta in MPEG compression format.

The source used for this recent film is in poor shape. Knowing about past Vikraman`s films on DVD and VHS formats, he is not a person that keeps his sources clean, and what we have here is properly the cleanest version of this title your ever going to get. With much wear and tear during the credits, we get an average clean picture during the rest of the film, with only some small white and black dots on the frame.

Some light compression artefacts can be seen, despite a decent average bit rate. While at times film grain is noticeable during a few shots. It doesn`t interrupt viewing as much since the problem isn`t that bad. The colour saturation, contrast and black details are as expected on an Ayngaran DVD, good.

The one major problem this disc had, while I was viewing, was the use of the Ayngaran company logo that was placed randomly during some sections of the film, appearing on each corner of the frame everytime it made a new appearance. I gather that this ploy was used to fight the problems of piracy, but to me as a consumer I found it quite annoying as it did hamper my viewing.

Audio

The film was originally shot in mono, and the DVD is presented in 5.1 mono track. This means that the single mono track is fed to all 5 channels, while the LFE channel is left soundless. The track is everything you expect from a mono output, to be audible.

Features

The disc has an optional English Subtitle track, with the odd grammar mistake here and there. But nothing else is offered on this disc

Conclusion

I would solely recommend this DVD to fans of Indian cinema, or people interested in the story as the film itself makes quite good viewing. But the DVD quality is a tad questionable but it is not as bad as other Indian DVDs on the market