Rajinikanth’s “Kabali” has hit the screens and has opened to mixed reviews.
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Made on a budget of 1 billion rupees, or $14,892,126 USA dollars, “Kabali” is expected to earn double the amount within the first three days of its release. If people in the South of India have declared the day of his movie release as a holiday, how could the movie’s music also not set a record of its own?
In Chennai, vehicle bonnets are being painted over with Kabali stickers and hair stylists provided special cuts for men that cropped the film’s name or the star’s face into the hairdo. The special flight carried 180 Rajinikanth fans to watch the film.
Sixty-five-year-old Rajinikanth is one of India’s most popular star and counts millions of fans who speak the Tamil language and even those who don’t.
While in Palakkad, bordering Tamil Nadu, in at least 25 theatres the film has been released, in the state capital, eight theatres are screening it with the first show starting at 4.30 am.
Read: A shock for fans! Rukendar from Chennai has three generations of Rajini fans.
At the theatre entrance, two 60-feet-tall (almost as high as a seven-storeyed building) very big cut-outs of Rajinikanth looked benignly at the fans who bowed, prostrated and prayed before them (the cut-outs) – some even broke coconuts, poured coconut milk and water.
“We had planned to screen the film at four star hotels – JW Marriot Lalit Ashok, Royal Orchid and Crown Plaza in the city, with tickets prized from Rs.1,300-1,500”, said Lahari Velu, a distributor of the movie.
Kabali is one of the most much-awaited Movies of the year.
For Alandur P. Sridhar, an insurance company employee, the long wait for his hero’s new film is over.
All we can say is a star has fans, Rajnikanth is a star who as stars as his fans.
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Not to be outdone in the praise department, Rajinikanth’s ator son-in-law Dhanush took to Twitter too to post this message: “Make way”. Time to celebrate. First day first show. Dinesh Ravi, Kishore and the other actors have been decent in their roles. An immaculate teaser where Rajinikanth took a dig at the usual rhetoric of mainstream Tamil cinema heightened the exhilaration, pointing to a theory that maybe “Thalaivar” was up to something completely different here.
