Sumo Review - Boredom at its Peak!

Ashwin Ram

Sumo is a comedy drama starring Shiva, Priya Anand, VTV Ganesh and Yoshinori Tashiro from Japan in the lead roles. The film is directed by Sonna Puriyadhu fame S.P. Hosimin.

Premise:

Yoshinori Tashiro, a Sumo wrestler from Japan accidentally lands in the Chennai seashore. Shiva takes good care of him, what happens when Shiva figures out the Japanese person’s origin and his livelihood forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

The core idea of pampering a stranger, making efforts to reunite him at the place he belongs is a feel good one. Picking a Sumo wrestler as the central character opens up a space for the writer to bring in a lot of fresh elements to the picture. Unfortunately, there is nothing credible in the film that is worth mentioning. Shiva himself has written the screenplay and it is absolutely notorious. Right from the scratch, there is no trace of the believability factor, Shiva is being introduced as a surfing champion but we get to see only his closeups and faceless shots of a random guy on a surfboard. Except for gobbling up food, Yoshinori Tashiro literally has nothing to do, and the same aspect is repeatedly shown throughout the first half. Another bothersome element till the midway is the terrible comedy track of Yogi Babu, it takes away so much of the screen time too, not that the other portions were better or anything, at least they were on track with the film’s selling point. The scenes don’t really move the subject ahead as the film barely has any substance to deliver. Even the second after the location is switched to Japan, we hardly get to witness any content. No nativity as the whole second half feels like watching a Tamil dubbed Japanese movie. The sequences taking place are also extremely generic and clichéd like politics in sports, etc. The Sumo wrestling sequences are also dry with no drama or whatsoever and shot in an uninteresting manner. There is a basic rule to sell out television rights for a film that needs to be close to two hours, this one feels like it is full of filler scenes just to bring it to the required duration mark.

Performances:

All the artists seemed to be disinterested in what they were doing as the performances were extremely lazy. After a neat pairing in Vanakkam Chennai, Shiva and Priya Anand carry zero chemistry here and it is mainly because of the poorly made scenes between them. Yogi Babu and VTV Ganesh blabber as they wish and irritate for their part. Yoshinori Tashiro is the poor soul who got stuck in the middle amidst the chaos, he was there cluelessly without having any idea of what was going on.

Technicalities:

Nivas K.Prasanna has tried his level best to emote the situations by putting a lot of pathos music, but the absurd elements don’t let the sentiments reach to the audience. Songs sound a little old, but compared to the other crafts of the film, it is slightly better. Inconsistent visuals, starting from the bizarre camera angles to showcase the Sumo artist and pathetically capturing the exotic locations of Japan, it’s a complete mess. Runtime might seem to be a calming factor as it is just around two hours, but useless as not even a single scene is enjoyable.

Bottomline

A decent idea to deliver a fun outing, but made in the worst possible way. An outdated flick in every aspect with an initial half that wastes so much time repeating what was shown on the first reel and later half spoiling it further in an alienated world.

Rating - 1.5/ 5