Japan is a Tamil-language action crime comedy film written and directed by Raju Murugan. The film is dubbed into Telugu with the same title and is distributed in Telugu by Annapurna Studios. The film stars Karthi and Anu Emmanuel in lead roles, alongside Jithan Ramesh, K.S.Ravikumar, Vijay Milton, Vagai Chandrasekhar, Bava Chelladurai & others in key supporting roles. The music is composed by GV Prakash Kumar and the film is produced by SR.Prakash Babu & SR. Prabu under the Dream Warrior Pictures banner.
Story:
Japan (Karthi) is a notorious master thief who steals 200 crore worth of jewels from a jewellery shop in Hyderabad. After seeing the mode of the heist, the police suspect Japan and try to catch him. Then follows a cat-and-mouse chase between Japan and the police. Who is the real culprit? Needs to be seen in the film.
What about on-screen performances?
Karthi does a wonderful job in the title role of Japan. He is the only saving grace of this film. The way he renders his dialogues in his unique slang and the way he acts with his typical body language as a notorious thief is commendable.
Heroine Anu Emmanuel is not up to the mark with her performance and her role adds very minimal value to the script. In fact, even if her part wasn’t there in the film, there wouldn’t have been much of a difference.
Sunil & Vijay Milton as the investigation officers are fine in their parts but they do not suit their respective roles in terms of looks.
Jithan Ramesh, K. S. Ravikumar, Vagai Chandrasekhar, Bava Chelladurai & the other supporting actors are okay in their limited roles.
What about off-screen talents?
The story by Raju Murugan is wafer-thin. Apart from creating a unique characterization for Karthi, there is nothing much interesting in the film. It clearly lacks a strong motive, a compelling story, and strong characters.
Even the screenplay is very weakly written. The flow of scenes never makes any proper sense and the scenes never create an interest in the way they are being unfolded on screen. All the subplots are poorly written, especially the heroine track looks very silly and unwanted as she appears only for 10 minutes in the whole film. Even the whole investigation process never engages us.
Director Raju Murugan does a pretty underwhelming job with his craft. Though his visual presentation looks good, the way the scenes are narrated is very boring and unengaging. He should concentrated more on the writing part to make this into a memorable film for Karthi.
The Telugu dialogues by Rakendu Mouli are fine and the Telugu dubbing for a few supporting actors look artificial and are poorly done.
Cinematographer S. Ravi Varman’s work is one of the biggest highlights of the film. He captures the film in good light and all the frames look tight and neat.
The songs by GV Prakash Kumar are forgettable. None of the Telugu songs are impressive. His background score however is okay in a few scenes while it remains flat in a few others.
The edit by Philomin Raj needed to be more crisper. Almost about 10-15 minutes could have been easily chopped from both the halves.
The production values by Dream Warrior Pictures are first-rate.
What’s Hot?
* Karthi’s Performance & Voice Modulation
* Cinematography & Production Values
What’s Not?
* Senseless Narration
* Lackluster Story & Very Poor Screenplay
* Forgettable Songs
* Silly Heroine Track & Investigation Scenes
* Half Baked Sub Plots
* Weak Characterizations
Verdict: Japan is a baseless action crime comedy that never engages us at any point. Except for Karthi’s unique characterization and slang, there is nothing much special about his landmark 25th film.
Telugubulletin.com Rating: 2/5