India's costliest film "Sivaji" opens
Reuters, Mumbai
Rioting for tickets to the first show, frenzied fans bathing their hero's cut-out in milk -- India's most expensive film Sivaji -- The Boss opened to huge anticipation last Friday, and it's not from Bollywood.Made at a cost of over $15 million, a huge budget by Indian standards, the Tamil film Sivaji, has generated enormous interest with tickets sold out for weeks in the south. The hero of the film is Rajnikanth, a regional star whose flamboyance is unequalled by Bollywood actors and who may have even more fans than India's best-known star Amitabh Bachchan. The story of the film was kept a closely guarded secret, further piquing the curiosity of the 57-year-old actor's millions of followers. Fans milled around cinemas screening Sivaji from early morning with cut-outs and posters of the dark-skinned, heavy-lidded hero whose unique acting style is characterised by a trademark gesture: toss a cigarette in the air, catch it in his lips, then light it with a match struck on a shirt sleeve. Posters show the actor sporting various hairdos, including a blonde one, standing in a strutting pose beside a much younger heroine. "First day, first show. Nothing less when it is Rajnikanth's film," said Mayilraj, a middle-aged fan of the actor waiting to watch the new film. "I have tickets for every day for the next one week. I have different sets of friends to watch the film with." But Rajnikanth's popularity remains largely restricted to southern India, partly because in the north the language of his films is not understood. He has acted in some Bollywood films as well, but he has never been able to replicate the success of his Tamil films in the Hindi language. In southern India, fans collect opening day ticket stubs of his movies, which change hands for exorbitant prices. Directors cannot kill off his character in films because angry fans have threatened to burn down the theatres. Even his personal life reads like a movie script -- he started as a poor bus conductor in Bangalore with a penchant for acting before making it big. The movie king has also dabbled in politics and once strongly influenced an election in Tamil Nadu. His last film released in 2005 called Chandramukhi is completing 800 successive days in a theatre in south India.
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