சிங்கம் (Singam)
The Birth of a ЛЕЩ
The remake was pretty tame and western, it had some romantic comedy and some action, but mostly it was just a cop movie with local flavour. Which is mostly similar for the most of the second world countries, the police depicted in singams is not much different from our local depictions, for example.
But the original version is raw and wild, the essence of the indian cinema. Romantic comedy part is very small, half of the movie is mostly “comedic”, while the rest of the runtime is pretty great action. While cinematography is not perfect and mostly consists of tacky early 2000s bits, it is used playfully and don’t ruin the fights. The clean fighting choreography would be perfect, but we have what we have. Also, i don’t think that a lot of those stunts can be done without cuts on this budget.
Funny thing, the villain is reprising his role in the remake.
Unlike the remake, the first part of the movie is somewhat dragging, with a lot of local small cases and is mostly “comedic” in tone, with the cheapest and oldest “jokes”. Here we meet our first sub-cop — a comedic sidekick cop, who aspires to be a superhuman supercop like Singam, but actually is an utter screw-up. This sub-cop, despite not being funny, kinda has his own thing and a couple of meta-ideas going on.
But when everything starts — it starts hard. The original Singam is much more gritty and angry, there is much more planted evidence, a lot of angry shouting and a lot more guns and sharp objects. In the remake series guns always were a loud full stop, a last resort thing, when fists and law aren’t enough. In Singam, it all goes like an anti-hero corrupt cop would be portrayed in the Hollywood, something on par with caped vigilantes or the Punisher. But here planting the evidence and threats of clan wars and mobbing by an entire village are depicted as something straightforward hero would do, when law and corrupt politicians don’t care for justice.
Overall, the remake tended to the mediocrity, while the original has higher highs and lower lows. So, they are about the same in quality and are not interchangeable in story nor entertainment.
சிங்கம் II (Singam 2)
ЛЕЩ international
So, it turns out, Singham Returns is a completely different movie and actually is loosely based on something else. Though, in the beginning, this sequel feels like it has as much common with the first movie as Singham Returns with its. They even introduce newromantic (comedic) interest for the hero. But, after some time, authors faithfully tie everything together.
Mostly this is more of the same. New sub-cop and comedic parts are even worse (seems like they are based on wordplay of local languages), and there is even more great action, which is even grittier. But this time Singam goes international — some scenes take place in south afrika with the help from the local cops. They even do play on how superhuman the Singam is.
சி3 \ சிங்கம் 3 (Singam 3)
ЛЕЩ INTENSIFIES
Again it's basically more of the same. But this time Singam met his peer in stunning looks and superhuman powers. This movie goes all-out in fighting scenes and intense angry shouting noises.
But again, we have seemingly new romantic (comedy) interest, which again neatly ties back, and a new sub-cop, which is so nonsensical and unsubstantial, that it seems that everything was lost in translation. This sub-cop was the most irritating for me out of all three.
One song seems to be more catchy than in the previous movies, and some of the songs are even kind of diegetic.