Publicity events showcasing trailers, songs and scenes from upcoming movies are routine in the Bollywood universe. But the unveiling of Tamil director Shankar’s latest cinematic adventure in Mumbai this week goes beyond the usual mix of fulsome speeches and slick audio-visuals.
Shankar’s visual effects extravaganza, whose trailers suggest a mishmash of 'Beauty and the Beast', 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', is scheduled for a release in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi on January 16. Titled 'I', it is among the first Chennai films to woo the non-Tamil media and audiences so ardently.
Perhaps this attempt to conquer markets beyond the South has to do with the enormous production costs, said to be in the neighbourhood of Rs 180 crore ‒ significantly higher than the average A-list Bollywood film. The publicity efforts aimed at the Bollywood media may also have to do with director Shankar’s reputation for churning out hits characterised by lavish production values, visually splendorous song-and-dance sequences, and polished action sequences.
“We are treating 'I' like a proper Hindi film, and not a dubbed film in terms of promotions,” said Anil Thadani, the big-name Bollywood distributor whose AA Films has picked up the rights for all territories beyond the southern states. The teasers for 'I' are already being shown before 'Happy New Year' and 'PK' in cinemas. “I have seen the trailer and a couple of songs, and I was blown,” Thadani said. “To conceive of something the way Shankar has and to show it on the screen so convincingly is awesome.”
National integration
Shankar’s twelfth movie stars Tamil superstar Vikram and British actress Amy Jackson in the lead roles. The trailer suggests that Vikram’s character is seeking vengeance after undergoing severe disfigurement. To ensure that the make-up was top-grade, Shankar visited the renowned Weta Studios in New Zealand, which is responsible for Peter Jackson’s 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' trilogies. Thirty per cent of 'I ' has been shot in China, said producer V Ravichandran. “It is a universal film, like 'Jurassic Park' and 'The Terminator' – it has an unusual script and extraordinarily shot songs and fight sequences, and many surprise elements,” he said.
The guest list at the launch of the soundtrack in Chennai in September provided an indication of the filmmakers’ ambition to put Tamil cinema on the world map. American action star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger flew in for the occasion to wave at the awestruck crowd and declare that he “would be back” soon.
“It is not about Tamil or Telugu or Hindi any more, it is about how good the movie is,” Ravichandran said. “Earlier, people used to watch movies for the heroes but now they have many other options. If a film is good, it will run, if it is not good, it won’t. The language is not important.”
Found in translation
Language continues to matter for audiences, especially since subtitling remains a vexatious issue: should English be used or Hindi?. Despite the differences, traffic between the south and the north has been busy and two-way for several decades. Remakes from and into Hindi have been routine since the thirties. Many southern directors have retooled their films for northern audiences, including K Balachander ('Ek Duje Ke Liye', 'Zara Si Zindagi'), Balu Mahendra ('Sadma') and K Raghavendra Rao ('Himmatwala', 'Tohfa'). Bollywood owes its recent spate of comedy action films to the Telugu and Tamil industries ‒ the January 9 release 'Tevar', a remake of the 2003 Telugu production 'Okkadu', is only the most recent example.
Apart from remakes, films from the South have been dubbed in Hindi over the years, vastly boosting the profile of such directors as Mani Ratnam. His movies 'Roja' and 'Bombay' in the nineties created enough waves beyond Tamil Nadu to encourage the director to work entirely in Hindi ('Dil Se', 'Guru') as well as make films simultaneously in Tamil and Hindi ('Aaatha Ezhuthu'/Yuva', 'Raavanan'/'Raavan').
Shankar is also a familiar enough name up north. Some of his films have been dubbed in Hindi, including 'Indian' (as 'Hindustani'), 'Anniyan' (as 'Aparachit'), 'Sivaji' (as 'Sivaji The Boss') and 'Endhiran' (as 'Robot'), while he also directed 'Nayak', a 2001 remake of his 1999 title 'Mudhalvan'. Shankar’s reputation as a big-dreaming director of grandly mounted action and song sequences, visual effects and big themes encouraged his Endhiran producer, Kalanithi Maran, to launch the movie’s Hindi trailer at a star-studded press conference, which introduced to the Mumbai media the movie’s key talents, including southern superstar Rajinikanth, co-star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and music composer AR Rahman.
In the case of 'Robot', it helped that Rajinikanth was already a recognisable actor beyond the South since he has worked in Hindi movies in the eighties and nineties. It also helps in the case of 'I' that its lead actor has appeared in the Hindi version of 'Raavanan' and Bejoy Nambiar’s 'David'. The cinematographer of 'I' PC Sreeram, who is a huge name down South, has shot such Hindi films as Balki’s 'Cheeni Kum' and 'Paa'.
The most recognisable name in the cast for non-Tamil audiences is music composer AR Rahman. But the 'I' trailer launch emphasises awe, not comfort, at Shankar’s talent for Hollywood-level spectacle.
“'I' could be a wake-up call for a lot of people,” Thadani said. “'Robot' did very, very well in the North – it was the number one film in terms of the business earned by dubbed non-Hindi films. The number of screens for 'I' will depend on the reactions to the Hindi songs and the promos, but the movie has the potential to go very wide.”
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Shankar’s visual effects extravaganza, whose trailers suggest a mishmash of 'Beauty and the Beast', 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', is scheduled for a release in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi on January 16. Titled 'I', it is among the first Chennai films to woo the non-Tamil media and audiences so ardently.
Perhaps this attempt to conquer markets beyond the South has to do with the enormous production costs, said to be in the neighbourhood of Rs 180 crore ‒ significantly higher than the average A-list Bollywood film. The publicity efforts aimed at the Bollywood media may also have to do with director Shankar’s reputation for churning out hits characterised by lavish production values, visually splendorous song-and-dance sequences, and polished action sequences.
“We are treating 'I' like a proper Hindi film, and not a dubbed film in terms of promotions,” said Anil Thadani, the big-name Bollywood distributor whose AA Films has picked up the rights for all territories beyond the southern states. The teasers for 'I' are already being shown before 'Happy New Year' and 'PK' in cinemas. “I have seen the trailer and a couple of songs, and I was blown,” Thadani said. “To conceive of something the way Shankar has and to show it on the screen so convincingly is awesome.”
National integration
Shankar’s twelfth movie stars Tamil superstar Vikram and British actress Amy Jackson in the lead roles. The trailer suggests that Vikram’s character is seeking vengeance after undergoing severe disfigurement. To ensure that the make-up was top-grade, Shankar visited the renowned Weta Studios in New Zealand, which is responsible for Peter Jackson’s 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' trilogies. Thirty per cent of 'I ' has been shot in China, said producer V Ravichandran. “It is a universal film, like 'Jurassic Park' and 'The Terminator' – it has an unusual script and extraordinarily shot songs and fight sequences, and many surprise elements,” he said.
The guest list at the launch of the soundtrack in Chennai in September provided an indication of the filmmakers’ ambition to put Tamil cinema on the world map. American action star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger flew in for the occasion to wave at the awestruck crowd and declare that he “would be back” soon.
“It is not about Tamil or Telugu or Hindi any more, it is about how good the movie is,” Ravichandran said. “Earlier, people used to watch movies for the heroes but now they have many other options. If a film is good, it will run, if it is not good, it won’t. The language is not important.”
Found in translation
Language continues to matter for audiences, especially since subtitling remains a vexatious issue: should English be used or Hindi?. Despite the differences, traffic between the south and the north has been busy and two-way for several decades. Remakes from and into Hindi have been routine since the thirties. Many southern directors have retooled their films for northern audiences, including K Balachander ('Ek Duje Ke Liye', 'Zara Si Zindagi'), Balu Mahendra ('Sadma') and K Raghavendra Rao ('Himmatwala', 'Tohfa'). Bollywood owes its recent spate of comedy action films to the Telugu and Tamil industries ‒ the January 9 release 'Tevar', a remake of the 2003 Telugu production 'Okkadu', is only the most recent example.
Apart from remakes, films from the South have been dubbed in Hindi over the years, vastly boosting the profile of such directors as Mani Ratnam. His movies 'Roja' and 'Bombay' in the nineties created enough waves beyond Tamil Nadu to encourage the director to work entirely in Hindi ('Dil Se', 'Guru') as well as make films simultaneously in Tamil and Hindi ('Aaatha Ezhuthu'/Yuva', 'Raavanan'/'Raavan').
Shankar is also a familiar enough name up north. Some of his films have been dubbed in Hindi, including 'Indian' (as 'Hindustani'), 'Anniyan' (as 'Aparachit'), 'Sivaji' (as 'Sivaji The Boss') and 'Endhiran' (as 'Robot'), while he also directed 'Nayak', a 2001 remake of his 1999 title 'Mudhalvan'. Shankar’s reputation as a big-dreaming director of grandly mounted action and song sequences, visual effects and big themes encouraged his Endhiran producer, Kalanithi Maran, to launch the movie’s Hindi trailer at a star-studded press conference, which introduced to the Mumbai media the movie’s key talents, including southern superstar Rajinikanth, co-star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and music composer AR Rahman.
In the case of 'Robot', it helped that Rajinikanth was already a recognisable actor beyond the South since he has worked in Hindi movies in the eighties and nineties. It also helps in the case of 'I' that its lead actor has appeared in the Hindi version of 'Raavanan' and Bejoy Nambiar’s 'David'. The cinematographer of 'I' PC Sreeram, who is a huge name down South, has shot such Hindi films as Balki’s 'Cheeni Kum' and 'Paa'.
The most recognisable name in the cast for non-Tamil audiences is music composer AR Rahman. But the 'I' trailer launch emphasises awe, not comfort, at Shankar’s talent for Hollywood-level spectacle.
“'I' could be a wake-up call for a lot of people,” Thadani said. “'Robot' did very, very well in the North – it was the number one film in terms of the business earned by dubbed non-Hindi films. The number of screens for 'I' will depend on the reactions to the Hindi songs and the promos, but the movie has the potential to go very wide.”
