Sivaji

<p>The movie starts with a man is arrested and poor people have surrounded him and the police and demanding to leave him. While in jail, the man is revealed to be Sivaji and story flashes back. Sivaji Arumugam was a wealthy Indian software engineer who returns to India after working for 10 years in the United States. He aims to establish a called Sivaji Foundation, which includes a network of hospitals and educational institutions that serve the poor free of charge. A highly influential political lobbyist and businessman, Adiseshan, who runs profit-making educational institutions and hospitals, sees Sivaji as a deadly competitor. To start his foundation, Adiseshan forces Sivaji to pay bribes to several government officials to obtain the basic approvals and sanctions. This eventually forces him to mortgage his property and sell his belongings to pay out the bribes. Meanwhile, Sivaji falls in love with Tamizhselvi, a demure and traditional girl who works as a saleswoman at a musical instrument shop. Tamizhselvi and her family are initially scared of Sivaji’s advances, but he soon manages to win Tamizhselvi’s heart and her family’s approval. However, when an astrologer checks Sivaji’s and Tamizhselvi’s horoscopes, he warns that their engagement will lead to heavy financial ruin and their union will result in Sivaji’s death. Tamizhselvi initially refuses the proposal due to her concern for Sivaji, but he calms her fears and convinces her to marry him. Adiseshan starts sabotaging Sivaji by influencing the state government to bring Sivaji to court and force him to admit that he paid numerous bribes. The judge declares the verdict against Sivaji, and his foundation is closed. Sivaji, reduced to poverty, decides to play the game his own way. With the help of his uncle, Arivu, Sivaji acquires evidence of 2 billion worth of illegal earnings from Adiseshan and uses it to blackmail him into giving Sivaji half the money. Adiseshan sends goons to retrieve the document and money, but Sivaji thrashes them. Sivaji proceeds to do the same to others with illegal cash, including the officers he bribed. He then transfers the money to his friends worldwide. They then deposit the money as donations to the Sivaji Foundation, making it legitimate. Sivaji informs the about illegal money held by the tax evaders, including Adiseshan, and gets them arrested. After this, Sivaji marries Tamizhselvi. Sivaji blackmails the chief minister, who was on Adiseshan’s payroll, and legally reopens his foundation. Adiseshan indirectly exploits Tamizhselvi’s innocence, and she gives up Sivaji’s laptop to save his life. He is arrested with presentable evidence. Adiseshan and the police try to unlock his computer through voice recognition but cannot do so without him. Sivaji refuses and Adiseshan tortures him to the point of death. To cover this up, Adiseshan and the police organise mercenaries to shoot at the police van carrying Sivaji’s body, making it look like a murder by a third party. However, Sivaji fakes his death after being informed of the plans to kill him by a sympathetic police constable before the interrogation. Left alone in the room, he electrifies himself and loses consciousness. Dr. Chezhian (Sivaji’s friend), Tamizhselvi, and Arivu intercept the police van after being informed by Sivaji through an MMS and replace his body with a dummy before the mercenaries open fire. Chezhian then revives him using a . Following Sivaji’s “death”, Adiseshan tries to open Sivaji’s laptop, but fails, and all the data is erased. A few days later, the revived Sivaji returns to take control of the foundation, disguised as his friend, M. G. Ravichandran. Though Adiseshan immediately realises that Ravichandran is Sivaji, he cannot prove it. Later, Sivaji confronts Adiseshan at one of his institutions, and the two fight. Sivaji breaks open the terrace containing all of Adiseshan’s black money, which flies out onto the campus, attracting students who come running out, resulting in a stampede in which Adiseshan is trampled to death. Sivaji Foundation soon becomes a frontier for India’s economic and industrial rise. In 1996, following the release of his , approached and pitched three storylines to to consider for his next venture. This included scripts which would later become (2007), (2010) and (2015). Rajinikanth was sceptical and refused all three scripts at the time. In August 2005, Rajinikanth signed up for his next film which was to be produced by ‘s oldest operative studio, , which was run by and . This time Shankar was confirmed to be the film’s director. After consulting ‘s family to avoid any issues with the film’s name, the project was subsequently announced on 24 August 2005. The film was titled , after Rajinikanth’s – Sivaji Rao Gaekwad. A tagline, , which stands for “Bachelor of Social Service”, was suffixed to the title. In addition to being AVM Productions’ 168th  film, was also Rajinikanth’s 154th  film, his 100th  Tamil film and his ninth film with AVM Productions. According to Rajinikanth’s biographer , the film was also made to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of the production company’s founder, . was also noted for its change in the traditional yellow-coloured Rajinikanth introductory text which made its debut with (1992). Instead the text is displayed in . The first choice for the role of the female lead was . However, in October 2005, Shankar and Rajinikanth announced that actress would play the female lead role. Saran’s voice was dubbed by actress , who was selected after a successful voice test, thereby collaborating for the second time with Shankar. Actor was signed up for the role of Sivaji’s maternal uncle, Arivu, in November 2005. Actress made her acting debut through this film in a special appearance; the scene however was later removed from the final cut. , who had earlier worked with Rajinikanth in , was signed up to perform a special appearance alongside Rajinikanth in the song “Baleilakka”. was confirmed in March 2006 to play the role of Adiseshan after , and were considered. , who acted with Rajinikanth in (1986), said he declined the role because, “After a film of the calibre of with Rajnikanth, I couldn’t settle for anything less”. was also approached, but he refused owing to a dispute over remuneration. Talks with proved unsuccessful too. Mohanlal said he declined as he could not commit to the project for an entire year without missing out on other projects. For his role, Suman removed his moustache and used to make his smile visible. Shankar instructed one of the costume designers to give the character a spotless white , shirt, shoes, a watch and sunglasses. Before this, Suman had acted with Rajinikanth in (1981). dubbed for Suman. Debate speakers and were selected to play supporting roles, with the latter making his cinematic acting debut. and were selected to play Sivaji’s parents. appeared in a small role as Dr. Chezhian. Shankar, who also wrote the film’s story and screenplay, was paid a then record salary of 100  million ( ) for the project. , who was selected to compose the film’s soundtrack and background score, was also paid 30  million. was assigned to write the dialogues for . Tha. Prabhu Raja Cholan, who would later direct the film (2013), worked as an assistant director in this film. Rajinikanth’s daughter worked as a graphics designer, creating the title for this film; she had earlier worked in the same position on two of her father’s films – (2002) and (2005). was hired as the cinematographer in August 2005. was responsible for designing the film’s costumes, while and were the editor and art director respectively. Additional make-up for Rajinikanth was done by make-up artist . Director worked as the film’s co-producer. commenced on 28 November 2005 with a at AVM Productions. The film’s launch was a secret event, with only pivotal members of the cast and crew being called for the event’s attendance. The first schedule of began on 14 December 2005  with the song “Vaaji Vaaji” featuring Rajinikanth and Saran being shot at in . The idea of shooting at Ramoji Film City was suggested to Shankar by Tharani who felt that the place offered a lot of scope for him to use his skills and experience as an art director. “Vaaji Vaaji” was picturised with an intention to showcase a palace setting when Shankar requested Tharani to show “a palace with lots of colour”. Tharani created a four-storey Babylonian palace to accommodate 80 dancers and 100 junior artists for the number. The set was built within 30 days. Shooting of the number, which according to K. V. Anand was filmed in motion picture , was completed in eight days. mentions in his book that 35 million was spent on the song’s making. I decided to have a glass dome depicting four seasons. But Shankar was specific, saying he wanted the desert and the flowers look. So, we decided to have desert on one side and rocks, waterfalls and flowers on the other. Tharani described the set designing for the song “Sahana”, which was also shot at Ramoji Film City, as “extremely challenging”. After listening to the lyrics of the song which speaks of the four traditional , Tharani thought of using a concept titled , which he used at a held in Japan. For the set’s design which depicted the four seasons, Tharani proposed three concepts – a traditional Japanese house, a contemporary house and a futuristic house. Shankar chose the futuristic house concept, which consisted of three domes in the shapes of a square, a circle and a pyramid adjacent to one another. The circular dome had a pathway around it and water falling from a 50 feet high rock, which would seep under the set. Tharani made use of and with the former being implemented on the floor to make the dance movements more easier to perform. Construction of the set for the number was completed in 30 days. In addition to these two songs, Tharani contributed to similar creations for the music store where Tamizhselvi works as a saleswoman, the street surrounding the music store, the behind the music store, the interior portions of Thamizhselvi’s house and Adiseshan’s office room. The music shop was designed in the style, while the warehouse was constructed at AVM Productions with the fight sequence being filmed there as well. Filming of another action sequence in an open-air theatre, which was also designed by Tharani, took place for approximately 15–20 days. K. V. Anand used brought from a French company for the sequence. The interior portions of Thamizhselvi’s house was designed using clippings of flats constructed by the . The “Style” segment was filmed in May 2006 at the -designed in , Spain, as well as the of Valencia and the in San Sebastian. The fair look of Rajinikanth’s character in the segment was created using , which was performed by , the head of the Chennai-based firm Indian Artists. K. V. Anand re-shot every single movement of Rajinikanth with a British woman named Jacky, who was also one of the song’s background dancers. All the shots featuring Rajinikanth in the song and those featuring Jacky were scanned in to enhance their clarity after which Jacky’s skin colour was digitally implemented onto Rajinikanth’s skin. In a scene, Rajinikanth and Shriya Saran imitated the dance from songs from three Tamil films starring , and , respectively. For the Telugu dubbed version, the scene instead featured songs from films starring , and , respectively. French hair-stylist Sandrin Veriar Seth designed two distinct hair-styles for the entire film and 13 hair-styles for the segment alone. To avoid disruptions that could occur at the shooting spot due to Rajinikanth’s fan following in , choreographed “Balleilakka”, Rajinikanth’s introduction song sequence in , a near with 500 people for eight days. To add more colour to the sequence, a 50-member team of artists from were employed by Shankar as background dancers. In November 2006, sequences featuring Rajinkanth, Saran and Vivek were shot at the . Filming of a key portion involving Rajinikanth and Vivek took place in the building in . A fight sequence and the song “Athiradi” were filmed at . The sets for the song were made bearing resemblance to the city of . For the climax scenes, which were filmed at the city SEZ towers, Rajinikanth tonsured his head. The scenes where Sivaji gets the money he transferred to his friends by forgery were filmed in New York City. The completion of those scenes in February 2007 marked the end of the principal photography. The climactic fight between Sivaji and Adiseshan was filmed at . K. V. Anand told of that the portions other than the songs and action sequences were completed in 65 days. Many critics stated that the theme of has been inspired from Shankar’s previous films (1993) and (1999). The film deals with the concept of corruption and money laundering and how the film’s protagonist employs methods to get rid of those elements. Gopinath Rajendran of compared the film’s title character to for being a hero “who takes from the rich and passes it on to the poor”. Sivaji, who is a software engineer is frustrated with the corruption in India which is shown in the scene where he watches the pitiable condition of poor people stating that: “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer”. Sivaji’s love for his country is also illustrated in a scene where he is advised by his uncle to go back to abroad but he says “Where else will I go? This is home.” After some re-recording of the background score in Paraguay, had been to London for additional re-recording. A month and a half prior to the film’s official soundtrack release, three songs from the soundtrack were leaked into the Internet. The songs, however, were only unofficial with low quality, where the official versions were composed slightly different and sung by different artists. The television rights of the film were sold to for 4 crore. The film’s distribution rights, as distributed by to various companies are (US$410,000) for the selling of rights to , (US$1.7 million) for and (US$1.7 million) for the rights to , an international Tamil film distributor. The trailer was released by on 30 May 2007 lasting for three minutes. The official trailer was released by AVM to , the official online sponsor and . The film was supposed to be released on the ‘s day, 14 April 2007, but due to post-production delays, the film was released worldwide on 15 June 2007. On 15 July 2007, AVM Productions, the producers of the film, announced their decision to the film into . That version was released on 8 January 2010. M. Satyamoorthy, on 9 July 2007, sought to stop the film being screened, claiming that it defamed the , a political party, as well as its president, , and the then , . Satyamoorthy cited a scene in which portraits of Gandhi and Singh are visible behind Adiseshan’s chair, implying that Adiseshan was a member of the Indian National Congress. Satyamoorthy also claimed (US$5.9 million) in damages from the film’s producer, director and lead actor to be paid to the section of the party. Jaya Rajadevan, one of the film’s assistant directors, sought an in civil court to stop screening of the film for alleged plagiarism. Rajadevan claimed that he had written the film’s story and had discussed it with Shankar’s manager in 2005. Although the court sent notices to Shankar, among others, the screening of the film was not stopped. Rajinikanth used his political affiliations to screen the film for several politicians. He went to to showcase the film for the former , , on 14 June 2007. At the screening, Rajinikanth told the media that he would invite the Chief Minister, , for a special viewing as well. Rajinikanth said that he had screened the film to current and former Chief Ministers, Dr. and , respectively, and that India’s , , was also keen to watch the film. A private screening was also shown to . saw a special preview of the film at Shenoys theatre in . After the screening he says, “It is a very good commercial film. Rajnikant has a halo around him; the man is amazing, simple and straight forward with no starry airs.” A 2012 re-release, also known as was created by the original to and to format and cutting half an hour of running time. is the first Indian film to be launched with the new Dolby Atmos platform. The trailer of 3D version was launched on 13 August 2012 at along with Rajinikanth. The 3D version released on 12 December 2012, coinciding with Rajinikanth’s birthday. The runtime of 3D version was shorter than original, cut to two hours and thirty-five minutes. The telecasting rights of the movie Hindi dubbed version were sold to The theatrical rights of the film were sold for (US$310,000) in Kerala and (US$950,000) in Andhra Pradesh. Worldwide, the film was estimated to have been released in about 750 screens. The film opened to virtually full cinemas. was released in 303 screens in Tamil Nadu, 300 screens in Andhra Pradesh; 12 screens in North India and 145 screens across the rest of the world. It was released in 16 screens in and grossed (US$160,000) within the first four days, at that point a new record for cinema. The film also debuted well in and in . Despite protests from pro- groups, the film debuted in 13 screens. In the national capital, New Delhi, the film debuted on 4 screens in . Based on what the distributors claim, there was “overwhelming response to the film”, with the number of screens increasing to 12 by the second week. The film made a good debut in the nation’s other metros as well such as and , as well as in other non-traditional markets for Tamil films such as Pune and Baroda. The film grossed 4.07 crore in two weeks; 8.5 crore in five weeks, and 10 crore in seven weeks in Chennai. was also successful in international markets. The film had a wide release with over 145 prints and in 200 theatres (Tamil Version alone) in over 20 countries across South East Asia, Europe, North America, GCC and Australia and others, one of the widest release for an Indian film in the international markets. Internationally, had good screenings in Malaysia. grossing over US$2 million in Malaysia, made a debut with 150 shows in Singapore. In Sri Lanka, the film debuted across 70 screens with all 700 shows virtually sold out. In the that contains a sizeably large Indian diaspora, the film opened to a good response. The film has collected over $8.5 Million from the overseas markets. In Canada, the film released in 10 screens in 3 major cities along with special screenings for the Tamil diaspora in the smaller cities. In United Kingdom, the film debuted on the box-office list at No.9 with earnings of about £14,000 per screen and was the first Tamil film to enter UK Top 10. In United States, was released in 24 screens with subsequent additions of 19 screens for the Tamil version. The producers of the film claimed that the film was going to be dubbed in Chinese and Japanese by , the holder of international rights of the film. The response in was disappointing, while the box-office collections in and Durban allowed it to become the first Tamil film to feature in the South African box-office top 10. bought a 3-month exclusive in-flight screening rights to the film, a first for the airline for any Tamil film. In the UK, 13 seconds of the film was cut. The original film showed Rajinikanth throwing a firecracker into his mouth, lighting it and then spitting it out at Pattimanram Raja, which was removed to give the film a 12A rating, The Ayngaran UK DVD release was uncut and given an 18 rating by the . It was also the first Tamil film to be officially released on a High Definition disc. In addition, the 3D re-release (which was already shortened by half-an-hour) was cut further to remove scenes of bloody injury and violence in 2 scenes to get a 12A rating. The worldwide box office collection of was ₹100—160 crore. The overseas distributor Ayngaran International reported collections as follows: US$2,000,000, Canada $500,000, UK$750,000, Europe and Gulf $750,000, Malaysia $2,000,000, Singapore $750,000, Sri Lanka $1,250,000, Australia, New Zealand & Thailand $250,000. was released in South Africa in late July 2007 after six weeks of its release by the leading South African distributor Ster Kinekor with four prints and released in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. Malathi Rangarajan of , in a review about the story, said that the lead character carrying out a rebellion against corruption was something “not be true to life”. She concluded by saying that “the story sags towards the end”. She, however, appreciated the performances of the prominent actors, the soundtrack, art direction, photography and the animation. Ananth Krishnan, another review from , a month after the film’s release, said that the film “… presents an effective diagnosis of entrenched corruption but the rather disturbing remedy it offers is, good old vigilantism.” It concluded by saying that, though the film did well at the box-office, the message of rejecting the corrupt system instead of reforming it was troubling. T. S. V. Hari of said that the director, Shankar, was not creative enough for the film and added this by saying ” turns out to be a rehash of all his previous jingoistic claptrap efforts”. It appreciated the other technical departments and suggested a good response at the box office. had a similar review about the story saying that “it had nothing new to offer” but promised it to be entertaining and gave it four stars. Nidarsana of praised the performances of Rajini, Vivek, Shriya and Suman, Vivek’s humour while also praising Tharani’s art direction, Anand’s cinematography and Sujatha’s dialogues but felt Shankar compromised a lot for Rajinikanth as the subject of black money is dealt just like that and due to story taking a backseat with Rajini taking the forefront, feels deserted without Shankar’s signature yet Shankar is on par with himself for portraying Rajini as larger than life. of summed the film by saying, “No logic, only Rajni’s magic”. About the story, he said, “Unfortunately, (the) message is lost in the maze of illogical and sometimes absurd sequences”. The review, however, praised the performances of Rajinikanth, Shriya and Vivek and the technical crew. wrote: “There is only one hero here, [..] – Rajni himself. Such is the overpowering screen presence of his cinematic charisma in every frame of the film. The film works big time as Shankar has made the film on a grand scale, [..] which is a visual treat with superbly choreographed action scenes. All this comes with top-of-the-line techno-finesse, perhaps the best ever in Tamil cinema” and also wrote that “Technically, [..] a revelation [..] there are stunning visuals, which is paisa vasool. K.V.Anand’s cinematography is top class. Art director Thotta Tharani work is enticing, especially the sets in songs”. rated the film 41 out of 100. 2007 , , and spoofed the character M. G. Ravichandran in (2008), (2009), (2010), and (2011), respectively.</p>