Pasanga wonderful film about the wonder years

Film: Pasanga; Cast: Sriram, Kishore, Vimal, Vega; Music: James Vasanthan; Cinematography: Prem Kumar; Direction: Pandiraj; Rating: ***1/2

After the success of its debut venture `Subramaniapuram`, Company Productions have come up with another lovely film in `Pasanga` (children).

Debutant director Pandiraj has exhibited a sound understanding over the medium and has extracted work of high quality from his star cast dominated by adolescents.

Set in a rural setting of a government run school, the movie deals with the pangs of growing up and puppy love narrated with oodles of humour.

A young school bully Jeeva (Sriram) is surprised by the spunk in a new classmate Anbu (Kishore) who has shifted to the government-owned school from a private institution following his father`s downturn in fortunes.``
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The studious Anbu goes on to win the heart of the bully`s sister played by Keerthana and the entire class with his helping nature in solving problems - within and beyond the curriculum.

And then there is the adult love interest in the form of trysts between Anbu`s uncle Meenakshisundaram (Vimal) and Jeeva`s elder sibling and school teacher (portrayed brilliantly by Vega).

The mix of characters established through a neat screenplay in different shades and shapes are neatly bound together during the simple but moving climax leaving a lovable lump in the throat.

Vega has improved tremendously after her first outing. The rest of the cast - all real life schoolchildren - are splendid amidst the rustic background filmed wonderfully by Prem Kumar.

James Vasanthan excels through his musical score, according a nice feel to the proceedings. A song by veteran crooner M. Balamuralikrishna is a feather in an otherwise crowded cap.

Source IANS