Veteran fans use it to romanticize the 90s and early 2000s Tamil cinema, where villains wore velvet suits, heroes drove lorries, and pre-interval blocks had massive fight sequences. It evokes the smell of burning oil and cut-out decorations.
In 2023 and 2024, as pan-Indian cinema rose, the phrase saw a resurgence. When critics panned Varisu for lack of logic, fans chanted "Oru Kal." When Jailer had a logic-defying cameo fest, Rajinikanth fans laughed and said the same. oru kal oru kannadi moviesda