'Oru Korean padam' is one movie that got enough visibility on an already crowded market, more for its diverse storyline and a punch line which dedicated the movie to all who lifted threads from Korean films. Particularly in the time of Kim Ki- Duk- the Korean director who has got much more fans than a commercial Mollywood director, the film has shown much promise before its release with its trailers and previews. But what we see on screen is a movie that is terribly off track with poor scripts and clumsy direction by its debutante director Sujith S Nair.
The movie has Maqbool Salman as Kishore Kumar, a first time director who is all set to release his independent film. Kishore is in urgent need to prove himself with a hit film in order to get married with his rich lover Eva,(Mithra Kurien) as her father insists on that. During the promotional interview of the movie , he gets a call from Eva, who tells him that she is locked up by her family who is planning to have her engaged with another guy, the very next day, which is also the day of release of his film. Kishore somehow gets Eva out of the commotion with the help of the MLA Nandhakumar(Tini Tom) who is a well wisher of Kishore.
But the real problem that Kishore is going to face sprouts out on the day of celebration of his first big hit film titled ‘Turning Point’. He and his producer Peethambaran (Chemban Vinod) is to face a very special visitor who is going to give them a shock of their life, all about the plagiarism that their storyline has. How they are going to deal with the problem forms the rest of the movie.
The movie doesn’t give any strong statements against plagiarism in films and one gets a feeling that apart from that there is an attempt to justify it. The filmmaker seems to be in double mind whether to make it a rollicking entertainer or a film that makes a strong criticisms about the current affairs of things in filmdom, though his observations are far from reality. This doubt seems everywhere in the scripting side and the sloppy direction fails any good thinking that occasionally props out of the scripts.
The performances are uneven with Maqbool Salman once again proving that he is not a hero material on which a fresh filmmaker can bank on. The movie will definitely add on to his list of flops . Mithra doesn’t have much to do while Mahedra Kumar Rai as the Korean director appear caricaturistic. Talented artists like Joy Mathew, Chemban Jose and Sunil Sukhada are wasted in roles that are poorly written. The songs by Rajesh Raj and Sreekumar vasudev are pretty average. The technical aspects are also poor with the BG scores by Rajamani just maintaining the tempo.
The debutante director clearly misses the hit post by many yards as he pitiably handles a sensitive subject, that could have well made into a hit film. A little more imaginative approach could have translated ‘Oru Korean Padam’ at least into a movie that could have become a watchable one. With no clear messages posted around, ‘Our Korean Padam’ ends up as one film that is quite easily forgotten and avoidable.
Rating: 4/10
