Yama Pasham Review

Yama Pasham Review, What’s Behind: Zombie is a new genre for Telugu cinema and this dubbed version from Tamil ‘Miruthan’ has hit the screens today in two Telugu states. Starring Jayam Ravi and Lakshmi Menon in lead roles, let us see how scary and how exciting is ‘Yama Pasham’?

Yama Pasham Story: Set in Ooty backdrop, a chemical leakage at factory spreads a deadly virus into the whole hill station. Then, Karthik (Jayam Ravi) is introduced as a Traffic CI living with his cute younger sister Vidya in the same town. As deadly disease creates zombies scattered in the hill station, Vidya is kidnapped from the house. Karthik is on a fight with zombies escaping himself on one side and search for Vidya on other side.  Finally, Karthik’s love interest Dr. Renuka (Lakshmi Menon) and her team of doctors in Ooty have to be shifted to Coimbatore for finding a medicine for virus. Later, Karthik finds Vidya safe in Renuka custody and the whole doctor team takes their ride to Coimbatore. That’s a shocker because the virus spreads more swiftly to Coimbatore and the research trials are yet to begin their course of action. How Karthiks deals the situation from here on and how many of the doctors lost their lives is rest.

Yama Pasham Artists and Technicians: Zombies aren’t familiar for Indian cinema. A start is what needed from someone to experiment and Shakti Soundar Rajan happened to be the first director. He tried the best to blend typical South Indian cinema’s emotion, love, comedy, drama and sentiment into a horrific zombie which misfired right from the go. Unable to strike a balance between all, ‘Yama Pasham’ makes it a tough watch for audience. Whole setup created by director looks so artificial and Ooty backdrop with Tamil flavor everywhere never gelled well with us. Writing was one of the weakest links. Cinematography and editing were also of second grade standards. CG work was also cheapest. Music by D Immam was good for one song and BGM is quite unimpressive. Production standards from E4 Entertainments banner are below average.

From artists’ point of view, Jayam Ravi wasn’t comfortable. This one being his debut Telugu film, definitely it can be called a wrong choice. Lakshmi Menon isn’t an enticing beauty. Still, she was into her best. The child artist who did sister to hero has put up a decent show. Among the rest, the chief doctor in team and MLA done well. Sreeman’s over action was not tolerable. Rest, there are purely Tamil artists.

Yama Pasham Rating Analysis: For those world cinema following audiences who are thorough with Zombi genre, this one looks more like a kids play. Right from make-up to scary blood sucking, our zombies became more of comedy stuff. After a decent take off introducing the frightening virus spread, narration takes a backseat with Jayam Ravi and his sister episodes went on boring. Then the romantic track was totally insensitive. Later on story moves towards interval block with doctor team escaping from Ooty. Interval block was visually appealing. Into second half, again the execution goes erratic and out of control. Coimbatore zombies attacking hero and his team are very poorly presented. Scientifically, ‘Yama Pasham’ never stood up to standards and it can easily be called a B grade dubbing film.

Major blame should go on director Shakti Soundar Rajan because his screenplay and direction were out of place. Telugu viewers never encourage such new genres until and unless presented very effectively. Failing on every front, right from casting to narration, ‘Yama Pasham’ is a forgettable debut for Jayam Ravi. On this regard, Cinejosh rates ‘Yama Pasham’ with 1.75 stars and one can give a safe miss. 

Cinejosh Yama Pasham Verdict: Direct Ticket to Yama Lokam!

                                                            Cinejosh Yama PashaM Rating: 1.75/5.0

                                                                                          Reviewed by Srivaas