*http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IG14Df03.html*
*Move over, Bollywood: Here comes The Boss
*By Raja M
MUMBAI - He tosses cigarettes and sunglasses into place with a trademark
flourish that has fans howling in delight, revels in screen mannerisms no
acting school can teach, and now he, Rajinikanth, also known as "The Style *
Mannan*" ("Style King" in Tamil) and *Thalaiva* (leader) to his fans, has
triumphed globally with his mega-hit *Sivaji: The Boss*, the most expensive
movie ever made in South Asia.
Even for the chaotically colorful, mammoth Indian film industry,
June-released *The Boss* has swept moviedom worldwide as an
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unprecedented Tamil-language film phenomenon. The US$20 million production
has hit the British Top 10, the first for a regional Indian movie, exported
60 prints to the United States and is smashing collection records worldwide
for a regional-language film, from the Bloomingdale Court Theater in Chicago
to the Cathay Cineplex in Malaysia, in Singapore, Sri Lanka, Canada and
Europe.
Riots erupted outside a cinema in Malaysia because of insufficient prints of
*The Boss* reaching the country. In the opening three weeks, the film took
in a record $2 million, more than any Malaysian movie had ever made in the
first weeks and baffling movie critics in a country where fewer than 10% of
the population speaks Tamil.
In India, before the prints were released (bookings closed a record three
weeks in advance) they were carried on elephant-back to a famous temple in
the southern state of Kerala, where they were handed over to the priest and
then to theater managers.
Indian films shown abroad usually entertain only overseas Indians, but the
natives are also demanding *The Boss*. It's being dubbed into Chinese
languages for release in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia; subtitles are being
readied for South Africa, where Rajini, as he is known, has a huge
following, and in Japan, where he bewilderingly is a cult figure among youth
who adore him as Odoru Maharaj (the Dancing Maharaja).
Apart from Bruce Lee and perhaps Jackie Chan, no Asian movie star seems to
have made such an impact as Rajinikanth has in the past decade. Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh even mentioned the popularity of "Odoru Maharaj"
during his address to the joint session of the Diet (Japan's parliament) in
December 2005.
After Rajinikanth's 1995 smash hit *Muthu*, his star power increased in
Japan to the extent he became brand ambassador to various Japanese consumer
products such as the Tohato Co's packaged snacks. An Indian newspaper
mentioned that the Japanese have even named a pickle after him.
Born Sivaji Rao Gaekwad to an impoverished family in the southern Indian
state of Karnataka and once a bus conductor in Bangalore, Rajinikanth, 57,
has traveled far to become Asia's second-highest-paid movie star after Chan.
His $9.87 million fee for *The Boss* is the highest any Asian actor has
received for a single movie.
*The Boss* carries a simple enough story of a non-resident Indian computer
engineer who returns to his motherland to serve, but runs into corruption
and red tape and ends up battling the "system", amid A R Rahman's
chart-topping music and Sankar's direction, two more of the highest-paid
professionals in Indian cinema.
Technically the most accomplished Indian film ever made, *The Boss* became
the first Indian film to use 4K high resolution that big-budget Hollywood
production houses use, employed large helium-balloon lighting for night
shoots, and flew in costume designers and hair stylists from France to make
Rajinikanth appear younger.
The success of *The Boss* owes as much to Rajinikanth's rare screen charisma
that delivers dialogues and punch lines with cool unpretentiousness as to
the technological brilliance about which movie critics are gushing.
Yet the extent of the success of *The Boss* has surprised even his fans. It
is running to full houses even in northern India, says Arunachalam
Chakravarthy, who represents a leading fan site, RajiniFans.com. "For the
first time, a regional-language film overtook Bollywood films that were
released at the same time across India," he told Asia Times Online.
With its landmark reception, *The Boss* seems to have cracked a new frontier
for the Indian movie business, the largest in the world and which, according
to the Export-Import Bank of India, enjoys an admission market that is
"almost double the US markets and three times that of the rest of Asia".
With *The Boss*, for the first time, an Indian film was released on par with
Hollywood blockbusters to similar success.
Married with a grown-up daughter who is entering film production,
Rajinikanth's otherwise unusual personal life for a movie star fluctuates
between reports of reclusive phases spent in the Himalayas to living it up
in the most expensive of New York's hotels and restaurants. He has a
reputation for never forgetting his old friends, and is said to be still in
touch with the bus driver with whom he worked during his bus-conductor days.
Like major Hollywood stars, Rajinikanth currently delivers about one movie
every two years, adding to his market value. "An analysis of Rajini's career
graph shows a remarkable absence of fits and starts," remarks a local movie
journal, Screen India. "It has been a slow and steady rise to the very top."
With about 63,000 registered fan clubs worldwide, Rajinikanth has tried to
leverage his following into politics, the usual territory for a southern
Indian superstar to lumber into, but as yet has not met with much success.
About a decade ago, he famously said there is no worse curse for a country
than to be ruled by a woman, and his maverick aphorisms may not yet find
many takers in a country that votes for Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi
and the former Tamil Nadu chief minister and ex-movie star Jayalalitha, or
in a world that could next have Hillary Clinton of the United States telling
it what to do.
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