Six senses are hardly enough for a man to raise his intuition and perceive things rationally with a lot of reasoning. Six senses are hardly enough for a man to acknowledge the precious self in him instead of aping others. Six senses are hardly enough for a man to understand that a bird in a hand is worth two in a bush. Six senses are hardly enough for a man to realize that a known devil is all better than an unknown angel. So the need of the hour is his 7^th sense. This radical message has been conveyed by Murugadoss through a movie that almost hits the spot.

The movie kicks off with the scenes of Bodhidharman, an athletic, audacious, well built, hypnotic and doctoral Pallava prince who lived during the 5^th and 6^th century and his voyage to China. He saves and serves the Chinese habitat using all his adroitness and in return, gets knowingly killed by them. Cut to the present era, Shuba Srinivasan , a daring and diligent genetic engineering student does some research on Bodhidharman, his physical traits, his advanced works on medicine  and much more for a genetic project of hers. She seeks Aravindha, an intelligent, yet idiotic circus artist’s help for her project. Operation Red begins from China to halt her project. What is the soul of Operation Red? What help could a loafer Aravindha be to Shuba? How do they tackle the gargantuan problems on the course of achieving her project forms the rest of the story.

Suriya has literally nailed it. The grace in him as the Pallava Prince, the peace in him as the Chinese saint, the finesse in him as the circus artist speak volumes and more on his dedication and talents. Sruthi Hassan seems more like a next door girl before the camera and that works well for the movie, though the Tamil that she speaks is a real irritant. And the funny irony is, she portrays herself to be a Tamil patriot in the movie. And yes. She needs to fine tune her expressions a little more. Having a thespian right there at home, why do you even worry Shruti? The antagonist Johnny Tri Nguyen is terrifying, mostly with his spot on expressions and sometimes with his funny expressions.

Murugadoss has executed an extravagant and an entertaining tale for this Diwali, that can’t go well with the audiences in a few places though. The first half could have been trimmed with a song cut. The chemistry between Suriya and Shruti seems a lot plain. In the few places that the director attempted to make the audience smile, most of them ended in futile. And of course, logical loopholes are a part and parcel of any movie. Dialogues are rational, crisp and stick well to the time and place. The concept of narrating the Chinese parts of the story is a practical and novel thought. Cinematography was a delight. Thanks to Ravi K Chandran and Murugadoss’ vision. Sadly, such a mammoth movie could boast only of inspired tunes and dull BGMs . Nevertheless, they weren’t total spoilers for the movie.

7Am Arivu would tickle the much needed 7^th sense in every man. Brilliant effort.

7 is its name and 7 is its score out of 10.