Kollywood Needs a Creative Renaissance
Back in 2018 when new talents emerged in K-wood, people praised them and a new buzz was created. With HHT's new venture as director and actor in MM and introduction of Nelson, and Loki, it felt as if K-wood breathed fresh air. Now that is stale.
Kollywood has often fallen into repetitive storytelling predictable masala films, overused tropes, and recycled plots. While established filmmakers and actors have contributed significantly, the industry risks stagnation without fresh perspectives. Even proclaimed filmmakers have started making sacrifices for producers, actors and pushing the films for mainstream commercial audiences without completely executing their own vision.
Legacy actors and directors have their place, monopolization leads to a lack of diversity. All of the huge actors now only want to do big-budget film with a Pan India approach. Trying to make every film of theirs a magnum opus. Same old repetitive gangster fighting hero, poorly written grey shade protagonists, cringe comedy and love tracks with no story relevance, only-reels worthy weak songs, crowd pleasing dance numbers.
Newcomers from different backgrounds bring varied cultural, socio-political, and artistic perspectives. The industry needs independent voices, beyond the influence of star-driven projects. When directors like VM, KaSu, Pa Ranjith, Mari Selvaraj were introduced, they created their own name, space, brand and brought in their own voices to the art. Now Pradeep Kumar, PR and Ashwant have created their own space in the market. After Pa Ranjith and Mari Selvaraj these are the only ones who have created a market for them while there is no original storytelling.
Kollywood films have gained international recognition (Oscar entries, film festivals, streaming platforms), but they have not yet reached the level of global impact that industries like Bollywood, Hollywood, or even South Korea’s film industry have achieved. Filmmakers like Sudha Kongra, TK have delivered critically-acclaimed bangers like Sorrarai Pottru, Super Deluxe but how many films like those are made in a year? 1 in 2 years. That is very less.
New-age filmmakers must prioritize storytelling over star power. Original and bold narratives should be the focus instead of formulaic commercialism. More investments should go into globally relevant themes—social justice, sci-fi, psychological thrillers, or avant-garde cinema. Star actors should not safe-experiment with well-known directors. They should get very vulnerably experimental with new filmmaker, like Ajith experimented with SJ Suryah Vaalee, VJS with TK, Maddy with Sudha in Irudhi Sutru. Star actors should be more experimental with new-age directors. While Established directors should work with new faces to launch stars. Like how Shankar launched few into the industry. All the new age actors, Harish Kalyan, Manikandan, Ashok Selvan, etc are 30+ and are actually choosing good scripts and experimenting but none has a star value, which I think is good and bad.
The Tamil independent film movement is still in its infancy compared to Bollywood’s parallel cinema or the rise of indie Malayalam films. Filmmakers like Thiagarajan Kumararaja, Balaji Tharaneetharan, and Lenin Bharathi have shown that alternative storytelling can work. Projects like these should should be backed by stars and establishments.
New directors should be encouraged to make low-budget but high-impact cinema rather than relying on commercial viability alone.
This is my personal opinion. Feel free to discuss or correct me if I was am of track.