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'Pawara
Menuwara':Woman athlete's story
The story begins
with Wasanthi winning at a national level athletic competition.
But the girl was so unfortunate she could not share her joy with
her father as he was fired from his job of a driver without any
reason. However Dayaratne once again joins with a former leftist
politician, Premachandra to assist him in his election campaign. Premachandra's wife Anula though coming from a poor family hopes to climb the social ladder with her marriage to a politician. Ravindra, the only son of Premachandra-couple is completely different from his parents and dislikes his father's politics. For he is interested in music, sports and education. Ravindra who sees Wasanthi's talents decides to help her but this later blooms into an affair between the two young people. Wasanthi's father Dayaratne who now works for Premachandra in his election campaign is kidnapped by a group of thugs in the pay of the other candidate opposing Premachandra. Being held hostage in a house in thick jungle everybody thinks that Dayaratne has been killed. His young wife Hemalatha and the two daughters feel his loss greatly. However Premachandra finds a job for Dayaratne's wife at his home while Ravindra continues to help Wasanthi. Nishantha who replaces Dayaratne to continue the campaign is different to the predecessor in his approach to work. Involved in nefarious activities Nishantha uses thuggery in Premachandra's political campaign. Meanwhile when Nishantha's advances to Hemalatha failed he joins with Premachandra's wife Anula, to plot against Wasanthi's mother to have her fired from the job. In the midst of this Anula hears about Ravindra helping Wasanthi and her family which leads to a quarrel between mother and son. The end result was the son leaving home. Ravindra settles in the city and later takes Wasanthi too there to find a good trainer for her. Enraged with what the son had done Anula gets Nishantha to attack Wasanthi. Severely injured by a blow she got on the head Wasanthi loses her sight. Condemning what Nishantha had done Ravindra complains to his father and Nishantha is fired from his job. This infuriates Nishantha and he seeks for a chance to take revenge from his bosses son. One day Nishantha finds a chance to attack Ravindra. He is wounded and is sent abroad for treatment. With all attempts to cure Wasanthi failing she is brought back home to live with the mother. Hemalatha who is jobless now becomes a labourer under Wimalasena Mudalali, who lives alone after the loss of his wife and child. As time passes Wimalasena Mudalali thinks that she could fill the void in his life. But Hemalatha refuses the advances. He even intervenes to protect Hemalatha's family from Nishantha who plans to destroy her whole family. However Nishantha falls foul of the law finally but Wimalasena meets his death without realizing the affection he expected from Hemalatha. Wasanthi's younger sister, Deepthi joins the police service and serves in a border village and Jayasekara Wedamahaththaya whom she meets comes to rescue Wasanthi from her permanent blindness. Meanwhile Wasanthi's father Dayaratne who was missing and thought to be among dead is found in an operation conducted by a team of police in which his daughter Deepthi herself was a party. Many are the questions which needs answers in the final act. Jayalath Manoratne, Devika Mihirani, Badra Nandani Gunaratne, Nishshanka Diddeniya, Semini Iddamalgoda, Meena Kumari Perera and Edward Gunawardena are in the stellar cast in 'Pawara Menuwara'. The mini film is produced and directed by Sankalpa Gunawardena. 'The
Windtalkers': War Movie with a difference The movie is based on true events of the Second World War. This will be a treat to many movie fans as the previous month was all science fiction and super hero stuff with Star Wars episode Two and Spider Man. Woo has created a scenario which depicts true to life situations of a mass battle field with breathtaking action sequences and special effects. The story is based on the events from December 8, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan. For the next several years, U.S. forces were fully engaged in battle throughout the Pacific, taking over islands one by one in a slow progression towards mainland Japan. During this brutal campaign, the Japanese were continually able to break coded military transmissions, dramatically slowing U.S. progress. In 1942, several hundred Navajo Native Americans popularly known as Red Indians were recruited as Marines and trained to use their language as code. In John Woo's Windtalkers, written by John Rice & Joe Batteer, Marine Joe Enders (Nicolas Cage) is assigned to protect Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach) - a Navajo code talker, the Marines' new secret weapon. Enders' orders are to protect his code talker, but if Yahzee should fall into enemy hands, he's to "protect the code at all costs." Against the backdrop of the horrific Battle of Saipan, when capture is imminent, Enders is forced to make a decision: if he can't protect his fellow Marine, can he bring himself to kill him to protect the code? The movie has scenes of close hand combat between the Japanese and US marines John Woo has studied the historical battles very well as the scenes of war show many equipment and military hardware used by both sides in hyper realistic manner. With two war movies already released in the form of Ridley Scot's Black Hawk Down and Mel Gibson's We Were Soldiers Windtalkers will have to compete at highest levels at the box office but it seems Woo's mastery of special effects will win the day. This is one of the big projects that the MGM studios has taken in to action because of the current situation in the USA is also favoring the war movie line. this will be the 4th war movie following Black Hawk Down, We were Soldiers and Behind Enemy lines. The cast includes other than Nicholas Cage and Adam beach, Woo's star of Broken Arrow Christian Slater also Noah Emmerich and Josh Hopkins. John Woo has revealed that the title comes from the nature of the Navajo language as being a primarily oral tradition, rather than being written and the film has been shot mostly in Hawaii and it has taken nearly six months to finish the shooting. The other important factor is that Adam Beach who is playing the role of the code talker is actually of the Saulteaux native Indian tribe of Canada. Finally every
one of the more than 300 Navajo Code Talkers who saw combat in World
War II are American war heroes. Their intelligence and persistence
spared the lives of their comrades on the battlefield. Their outstanding
achievements were only fully recognized long after their period
of service. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
"Pawara Menuwara" is a tale about a beautiful woman sprinter
and is to be telecast on national Rupavahini channel soon. The mini
play which is set around Wasanthi, a young runner and her family
has for its background father Dayaratne, a man who fights for certain
principles and even serves an imprisonment of several years for
being involved in political work for a radical party, mother 'Hemalatha'
an educated and caring mother and courageous younger sister Deepthi.
