first time ever I saw the heroine dying. In fact both
the heroines in the film (Ambika and Radha) die and
what is worse, they commit suicide. It left a lump
in my throat and I plunged into depression just like
the hero (Mohan) did.
Then there were films which had both the hero and
his love dying. The latest example for that would
be the heart wrenching Paruthiveeran which shone for
its bold climax. The characters Paruthiveeran and
Muthazhagu live in our hearts even today.
In the male-dominated Tamil cinema we hardly ever
saw heroes dying on screen (with the heroines left
alive), especially when they are young and in the
prime of their lives. But the filmmakers are now bold
and they have experimented by showing the hero die.
But they do not die without leaving us devastated
and they manage to dwell in our hearts forever and
not to forget, die doing their last act of heroism.
Here are some handpicked movies in the recent past
which had the heroes dying:
Raavanan: Who can forget Veeraiya
(Vikram) being shot dead by the manipulative cop (Dev)
just when we thought that Ragini (Aishwarya Rai) might
have actually fallen in love with the ‘Raavanan’.
It sure brought tears in our eyes to see Vikram falling
into endless abyss which was shown beautifully with
the director’s symbolism of making him fall
off the cliff with hand out stretched. The brave Veeraiyaa
was all we had in mind while walking out of the movie.
Endhiran: Director Shankar proved
that it is not necessary for a hero to be human when
he created the character Chitti. Chitti was a delightful
robot with its share of grey shades. Despite being
the reason for all the chaos, in the end when he is
shown dismantling himself rattling off philosophies
we couldn’t help but feel our heart get heavier
with each passing minute. It was hard to believe that
it was this same robot that we wanted Vaseegaran to
destroy.
Vaanam: The death of Cable Raja (STR)
was the most shocking and unexpected thing ever for
Cable Raja was a happy, easy-going, selfish young
man who did not care about ethics when he wanted to
make some money. It was heartwarming to see him have
a change of heart but it broke our hearts to see him
die saving several hundreds of people.
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