20th April 2005

BABA flopped. JAGGU BHAI got shelved. Anyone in the position of Superstar Rajnikanth would get tempted to attempt something which would be in the lines of BASHA the stupendous hit made by Suresh Krissna in order to reclaim his past glory. However the superstar chose to act in the remake of the Kannada film "Apta Mitra" which itself has been inspired by the Malayalam Film "Manichitrathazhu" made by Fazil around one-decade back.

For a person to survive for more than 25 years as a superstar is not an easy thing. It is even more difficult to attain fan following in a state like Andhra Pradesh where Rajnis last direct film was a 10-minute cameo role in Pedharayudu and the movie before that I dont even remember..maybe it is T.Subbarami Reddys Jeevana Poraatam..where the superstar played second fiddle to Sobhan Babu. Whatever following Rajnikanth achieved in Andhra Pradesh was through his Tamil films that got dubbed films into Telugu. In one way this is not surprising as there is something more surprising in the fact that Rajnikanth has succeeded in establishing fan following in a far away developed country like Japan. It is known fact that Rajnikanths Muthu got dubbed as Dancing Maharaja in Japan and this film enjoyed a very good run in Japan.

Apart from so many other factors, right selection of movies in planning one's career plays a very important factor to survive in number one position for such a long period. The choice of the film the Hero makes has to ease the expectations the fans have from their favorite hero and also set the right expectations for the future films from the star. Maybe that might be one of the reason for the Megastar Chiranjeevi to accept doing the remake of "Munna Bhai MBBS" after the stupendous hit "Tagore". Maybe "Shankar Dada MBBS" has set the right stage for the Megastar's next film being made by Allu Aravind in the direction of Srinu Vytla.

CHANDRAMUKHI is one such film, which appears to be a right film for Rajinikanth at this stage of his career. This film has been released after three years of the actors previous release BABA - that was a big disappointment at the box office. Of course certain die-hard fans of the superstar who hope to see Rajni create havoc on screen like what the star achieved in BASHA and NARASIMHA (Padiyappa in Tamil) may find things not suiting to their taste as far as CHANDRAMUKHI is concerned. But films like CHANDRAMUKHI will ease the tension and set the stage for future blockbusters from the superstar.

In "Manichitrathazhu" Mohanlal played Rajnikanth's role as the psychiatrist who comes from US to find out the unusual happenings in the house bought by Suresh Gopi who played Prabhu's character. Shobhana played Jyothika's role in the Malayalam version and her excellent performance in that film won her the National award for best actress apart from several state awards. Because of the mystery, suspense, thrills, good performances and sophisticated comedy, even after a decade of the film's release, the people of Kerala consider Manichitrathazhu as a classic film.

Of course compromises have been made in CHANDRAMUKHI when compared to the Malayalam version. In the Malayalam version, Mohanlal enters the film just a few minutes before the interval. Changes have been made in the Tamil version so that Rajnikanth's character appears throughout the film except a few scenes when the spirit of Chandramukhi possesses Jyothika. Mohanlal's character in Malayalam version does not have a heroine. In CHADRAMUKHI, Rajni has Nayanatara as company to sing and dance. These compromises however in no way let the movie down in any way. On the other hand, I would say these were smart moves bearing the fact that Rajni is making reentry into films after a gap of three years and Rajni entering the film just before interval would be something like the fans thirst only being half quenched.

CHANDRAMUKHI is not BABA from the point of view of the commercial fate of the film. CHANDRAMUKHI has succeeded in recreating the drama and sophistication of MANICHITRATHAZHU and has earned the Superstar a successful film under his belt. The talk for this film in Tamil Nadu has been great. The film is earning positive talk in Telugu too and is bound to cater very well to the tastes of family audience.

Nothing will make fans happier than a confirmed hit from their favorite Hero. The success of CHANDRAMUKHI should make those fans that experienced little disappointment at CHANDRAMUKHI not turning out to be a BASHA to overcome their disappointment and rejoice in the films success. Finally I hope the superstar changes his mind and decides to act in more films so that the expectations are eased and he gets more chances to try out different things and in the process delight his producers.... and also his fans.

Sriram Thota
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