Released on Nov 20th 2015, Kumari 21F, is performing well at the Box-office in India. This is primarily due to adult content that is appealing to the youth. Written and produced by popular director Sukumar, this movie’s screenplay is also handled by himself. However, contrary to what the unit of Kumari 21F is claiming the movie as original, it is a blatant copy of a 2004 released French film titled ‘Lila Says’.
Audience of the Indian origin familiar with international movies are well aware that quite a few movies draw their inspiration from the West and in most cases the writers copy the story point, customize it for the local Indian populace. In this case of Kumari 21F, i.e the story and screenplay – writer Sukumar had lifted not only the story but also the characterization and scene by scene presentation from the original ‘Lila Says’ . It is such a disgrace coming from a popular director. Though a certain amount of perversion was expected from this film, none thought that it would be this crude and gross.
To bring awareness to this plagiarism, below we are presenting scene by scene comparison:
***** Spoiler Alert *****
| Lila Says (Original) | Kumari 21F ( Copy) |
| 1)Hero Character Name Chimo | Hero Character Name Siddhu |
| 2)Chimo is unemployed youth | Siddhu too unemployed youth |
| 3)Lives in Arab Ghetto in Marseille( a city in France) | Siddhu Lives in Slum ( KGB colony )in Hyderabad suburbs |
| 4) Chimo lives with his mother -Single Mom | Siddhu too lives with his mother – Single Mom |
| 5)Chimo hangs out with his unemployed friends | Siddhu too hangs out with his jobless friends |
| 6)Chimo friends do shop lifting for livelihood | Siddhu friends do ATM thefts for livelihood |
| 7)Lila, who is overtly sexual persona, moves in to the neighborhood | Kumari , who is out going and outspoken sexually , moves in to the colony |
| 8)Chimo , Lila begin romance | Siddhu , Kumari begin romance |
| 9)Lila invites him to look up her skirt while she rides a swing. | Kumari invites him to look up her bared top while at home |
| 10)Chimo’s best friend sets his sight on Lila | Siddhu’s best friends try to lure Kumari to bed |
| 11)Chimo’s friends do sexual harassment, molestation on Lila | For Telugu audience, this has been replaced with eve-teasing and demanding indirectly to sleep with them |
| 12)Rift arises between Chimo and his friends | Rift arises between Siddhu and his friends |
| 13)Chimo’s friends attack Lila at her home and rapes her | Siddhu friends attack Kumari , rapes her at her home |
| 14)Chimo is broken when he discovers Lila was in fact still a virgin | Siddhu too realizes Kumari was virgin ( after seeing blood stains on her saree after the rape) |
| 15) Hero, Heroines characterization too same in both movies , professions changed to fit Indian society | |
| 16) However, last 20 minutes of Lila Says has been modified, here onwards in Kumari 21F they inserted climax from another movie named ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’ (2009) | |
***** End of Spoilers *****
Also Read: Akhil’s disastorous performance in overseas.
Director of Kumari 21F, Mr. Surya Pratap in his interviews, has claimed that this story is outcome of Sukumar’s ideology and as a result of Sukumar’s out of the box thinking. Those who have watched the films are amused at those statements.
Those who watched ‘Kumari 21F’ may find it’s nothing but a carbon copy of ‘Lila says’ as compared above. To find more, here is full plot of the movie “Lila Says “from Wiki :
Chimo is a nineteen-year-old self-described loser who lives in an Arab ghetto with his mother in Marseille. Unemployed, he turns down an opportunity to study at a writers’ school for teenagers in Paris despite showing real promise as a writer. Instead, he wastes his day hanging around with other unemployed and aimless “losers”. He falls for Lila, a beautiful blonde sixteen-year-old who just moved into the neighborhood with her eccentric and sexually abusive aunt. Lila is a self-styled “bad girl” who presents an overtly sexual persona; they begin a tentative romance after Lila invites him to look up her skirt while she rides a swing.
Meanwhile, Mouloud , Chimo’s best friend and leader of their band of friends, also sets his sights on Lila. He begins to sexually harass Lila, not allowing her to walk the streets of the neighborhood unmolested. Chimo’s disgust at Mouloud’s behavior towards Lila creates a huge rift between them. Mouloud, resentful of Chimo’s changing attitude toward him and Lila’s sexual indifference, vents his aggressions by attacking Lila and her aunt at home and raping Lila. Chimo is broken when he discovers Lila was in fact still a virgin, despite her stories of outrageous sexual adventures. This is confirmed by finding her scrapbook showing the sources of the titillating, but fictional, stories she told him. Lila is taken away by her aunt, leaving Chimo heartbroken. He eventually manages to convince a police detective to let him telephone Lila, whereupon he simply says “I love you” and she says “I know”. It is implied at the end that he plans to meet Lila who is in Poland for the summer. However as he remembers his experiences with Lila, he writes about them, winning the writing scholarship he scorned earlier, and ultimately changing his life and allowing him to escape the poverty of his home city and to study among the best in Paris. Lila changed Chimo’s world, as he did hers.
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