Or rather, Narnia: Athisaya Ulagam, the Tamil version.
I really liked it. Considering I never really cared for the original story, I find it compelling. Having read the story as a child, but with little recollection, I recently reread The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Funny, how you miss some little things in the story. In the book, Aslan's Standard is described as a Rampant Lion. It's mentioned a few times, but I totally overlooked the significance of the word... till I saw it in the movie. It was a reference to Heraldry, but I totally missed it. Stupid of me, since I spent the summer of '98 learning Heraldry. Even the Coat of Arms of the school were I was at that time had a Rampant Lion. Surrounded by Heraldry everywhere on the school grounds, it was something that had me hooked. To demonstrate, here is an example shield generated by the Blazon software.
In the jargon of Heraldry (called Blazon), this shield would be denoted by "Sable, a Rampant Lion Gules". Which, simply put, stands for, "A black field, and a red Rampant Lion".Back to the film. After finally watching the English version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (I had seen Harry Potter: Mayita Koppiyam), I have begun to appreciate what a neat job the dubs are. In Narnia, the Tamil voices appear to have been chosen with care, to represent the original characters as closely as possible. Mrs. Macready has the voice and diction of a very sharp and strict Tamil matron. Peter's enunciation of Tamil is very clear, and reflects how the English Peter would have spoken Recieved Pronunciation, while the other children might still speak a form of Estuary English. But most interesting would have to be the tamil employed for the animals. The beavers speak like a middle aged couple, and the way Mrs. Beaver speaks, you half expect her to put out a tray of steaming filter coffee (besides the Meen Varuval). Maugrim the wolf speaks like a dastardly south Indian villian with a hearty belly laugh and a moustache to boot.
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