South Indian Assassin Movie Looks Kinda Familiar

Looking at a trailer for Velayutham, a Tamil-language film that opened this week, I’m betting its story is not canonical to the Assassin’s Creed continuity. It’s made by a producer famously unconcerned about infringing on others’ marks as well.

Reader Amog R. passed along these stills and this shakycam (“in HQ”) of the film’s trailer, which definitely features an Ezio/Altaïr-esque hero at the beginning, a gangsta assassin’s hand symbol, and then a lot of riding around on mopeds. It gets really good at the 3:11 mark, that’s when he starts rockin’ the AC costume and Altaïr poses.

The film’s Wiki features an even-more hilarious poster and notes it’s based on a 2000 Telugu-language film called Azad – long story short, a guy with a secret assassin identity saves the city.

This film is produced by Venu Ravichandran, whose production company, Aascar Film, had to change its name from Oscar Films in 2008 after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the guys who hand out Oscars – sent a C&D. His logo apparently was also similar to the one used by the Academy Awards.

Velamints, starring Genelia D’Souza as April O’Neil and Vijay as Altaïr, produced by Asscar Movies, released July 15. No breasts. No blood. Sleighbell fu. Moped fu. Hand gesture fu. A great big guy gets up and walks across the screen. Four stars. Joe Bob says check it out.