CHENNAI // Employees got the day off, children stayed home from school and one airline even laid on a special flight – all so that hundreds of thousands of fans of Indian superstar Rajinikanth could attend the premiere of Kabali, his latest film. They thronged into cinemas across India and Malaysia on Friday, jumping out of their seats and dancing in the aisles as their hero saw off enemies in the gangster movie.
Inside Chennai’s Woodlands theatre, one of the city’s oldest, fans leapt up dancing and singing along when the superstar made his first appearance on the screen. Whenever Rajinikanth landed punches on the villain in the two-hour-long film, the audience egged him on with cheers and whistles.
Huge cut-outs of Rajinikanth and gigantic posters loomed over the street outside the cinema and fans poured big cans of milk over the cutouts in a Hindu ritual to bless the star and wish him a long life.
Rajinikanth, 65, is one of India’s most popular stars and counts millions of fans, among both Taimil speakers and even those who do not speak the language.
The film is being released in more than 12,000 screens across India, as well as in Malaysia, which has a sizeable Tamil-speaking population and millions of Rajinikanth fans. It was released in the UAE on Thursday night with 100,000 tickets sold in advance.
Kabali also premiered in 400 US theatres. Rajinikanth and fans attended a special screening in San Francisco.
The action star has a massive following in Japan too, where his subtitled films are big box office earners. In Tamil Nadu, tickets for Kabali were selling at five times the original price, despite a state government cap on the cost of cinema tickets.
The Malaysia-based AirAsia budget carrier organised a special round-trip flight from Bengaluru to Chennai for the movie premiere. The aircraft was painted with the star’s portrait in dedication to Rajinikanth and flew to 10 destinations in India.
The opening scenes from the film show a grey-bearded Rajinikanth being released from a prison swearing vengeance. In his search for revenge, he is reunited with his family and rains destruction on his foes.
Rajinikanth merchandise was selling briskly outside theatres in Tamil Nadu. T-shirts and jackets sporting the superhero’s face and his trademark dark glasses are hot favourites. One finance company in southern India minted special silver coins with Rajinikanth’s visage, with a five-gram coin priced at 350 rupees (Dh19).
The Rajinikanth phenomenon in many ways embodies the Bollywood dream. Born in 1950 into a modest Marathi family in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), his birth name is Shivaji Rao Gaekwad. His father was a policeman and Rajinikanth worked as a labourer, carpenter and bus conductor before he enrolled in the Madras Film Institute to pursue his ambition to act. The Tamil film director K Balachander spotted him in a stage play and advised him to learn Tamil if he wanted to break into films.
After playing a series of “baddies” Rajinikanth transformed into a leading man and began his path to superstardom, becoming the highest paid actor in India and the second-highest paid in Asia, after Jackie Chan.
He is famous for his mannerisms. His signature move involves tossing a cigarette into the air and catching it with his lips – a trick he picked up when he was 18. His gravity-defying stunts have inspired an entire brand of humour, known as Rajini jokes. In 2011 he was hospitalised several times with illness variously reported as bronchitis, fever and even kidney failure. When he was finally discharged, his devoted fans were so relieved that more than 1,000 of them shaved their heads in gratitude.
When Rajinikanth joined Twitter in 2014, he acquired 215,000 followers on the first day, the sixth-highest debut of any celebrity anywhere in the world.
Though he is regarded mainly as a Tamil actor, Rajinikanth has acted in numerous other Indian languages including Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali. Oddly, he has never played role that required him to speak Marathi, his own language.
* Associated Press
