Great talents of year 2007

G.V. Prakash Kumar: This nephew of Rahman is no lesser than his uncle. From the kid who sang "Chikku bukku chikku bukku rayile" he has come a long way and is a talented music composer and singer today. His first venture Veyil was just a sample of his talents where he brought out the flavor of the soil in his songs. Followed a string of hits with Kireedom, Polladhavan and Oram Po, not to forget his good work in the recently released audio of Velli Thirai.

The sound of his music has a Rahman kind of feel though he is slowly coming up with a style of his own. One thing I found impressive about his songs is the way he uses the singers. Be it Sonu Nigam in Vizhiyil(Kireedom) or Suchitra in Naan Alibaba Thangam(Polladhavan) or Sunitha Sarathy and Krish in Neeye Sol(again from Polladhavan) or Jayachandran in Kanavellam(Kireedom) or Alka Yagnik in Idhu enna Maayam(Oram Po), he has brought out a different dimension of their voices in these songs. And of course, Sadhana Sargam's different westernised melody Akkam Pakkam was unforgettable.

He himself is a good singer too as proved by Kaadhal Yaanai(Anniyan) and Hello Miss(Unnale Unnale). With a handful of offers in coming days, he is sure to go places with his immense talents.

Krish: Vijay Balakrishnan aka is a singer with loads of talents and a sweet, wonderful voice. His June Ponaa July Kaatre was the anthem of youth this year. I learnt from TV shows in which he participated that he was brought up in US and came to India in his quest to become an actor and a singer. In spite of this, he has such a vast knowledge of Tamil songs right from very old days, which I doubt not many of the singers have. He has sung many remarkable songs this year under many music directors and hoping that this is the start of a long journey of his voice in the music industry.

Dhanush: Good appearances alone does not make a good actor. A very ordinary looking Dhanush winning hearts with his performance film after film is a good example of this. Call it the luck that his marriage to Aishwarya brought him or the magic that his little son did for him, he is fast moving up the stardom ladder with every film. A good dancer, casual actor with boy next door looks is what makes Dhanush special. Films like Sullan are a thing of the past and now Dhanush is back with a bang with movies like "Yaaradi nee Mohini" to prove himself.

Shriya: Beauty and grace personified and her name is Shriya. One advantage that Shriya had over her contemporaries is that, she had the chance to play the pivotal role in all her films like Mazhai, Thiruvilayaadal Aarambam, Sivaji and ATM. In the sense, there is a part of the story in all these films that revolves around her. Unfortunately, I would say that she has not made the best use of these chances and has given just adequate performances in all these films. Hope she would make the best use of her roles in forthcoming films next year. She is a brilliant dancer, her expressive beautiful eyes playing an important role. Surprisingly, she is an actress who has always kept low profile unlike some empty vessels who appear in all TV channels giving big hype for their minuscule roles.

Santhanam: Starting off in small screen with his extremely popular Lollu Sabha, Santhanam has moved to big screen starring in a lot a big films as a comedian. In these days when actors do a variety of things sometimes interesting sometime disgusting in the name of comedy, Santhanam's style of providing comic relief by casual way of talking is well appreciated by lot of people. He has also managed to a give a good performance in serious scenes too. He surely has a great future ahead and of course a long career in cinema to prove himself(inspite of the rumors that he has died in an accident :D)