Rajinikanth's 'Kabali' teaser goes viral: But here's why it is also a risk

The teaser for Rajinikanth’s next film Kabali was released on Sunday, 1 May, which is world labour day. The one minute six seconds teaser just went viral across the globe in merely minutes, and was trending in all countries. The Kabali teaser has shattered all existing You Tube records for Indian films, by a mile. But we can’t say we are completely surprised. “Superstar Rajinikanth is the real king as he shattered all records on You Tube with Kabali teaser. In 22 hours the teaser has crossed 5 million views and 2.25 lakh likes, which is phenomenal by any yardstick,” says the producer of Kabali, Kalaipuli S Dhanu. [caption id=“attachment_2760064” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Rajinikanth in the ‘Kabali’ teaser. Youtube screen grab.[/caption] Rajinikanth’s Kabali teaser has broken the existing You Tube record of Shah Rukh Khan’s Dilwale trailer, which garnered 3.6 million hits in 24 hours. It also beat the record set by the Tamil film, Theri, which got 2.2 million views in 24 hours. The 66 seconds teaser, directed by Pa Ranjith is majestic and electrifying. Ranjith, and national award winning editor Praveen KL, have cut it superbly, bringing out the essence of Rajinikanth’s larger than life image. Ranjith has previously made classy commercial films like Attakathi and Madras, and has not tinkered with the superstar’s image. It’s important to note that Rajinikanth is coming out of his comfort zone of sorts, by doing a film with a newbie director like Ranjith. In the last 15 years Rajinikanth has only worked only with top commercial directors like Shankar, KS Ravikumar and P Vasu, who understand his kind of cinema. However, Ranjith has played to the superstar’s strength’s  in the teaser, with suave presentation, style and punchline dialogues as an action hero. In the teaser Rajinikanth in his inimitable style asks – “Do you think that I’m someone who plays a sidekick to villain MN Nambiar (legendary bad guy in MGR films) ? Don’t mess with me, I’m Kabali da”.  This sentence is perhaps most emblematic of the Rajinikanth’s real life persona. The impressive background score of music director Santosh Narayanan also adds to the fact that Rajinikanth is open to working with new teams. His earlier films in the last decade had only AR Rahman as a music director. A lot is riding on Kabali for the 65 year old superstar whose last release Lingaa did not do well at the box-office. Rajini plays an ageing don in the film, which also has Radhika Apte playing his wife and Dhansika as his daughter along with Kishore, Kalaiarasan, Dinesh and John Vijay. The film, extensively shot in Malaysia, is rumoured to cost around Rs 100 Crore and will release in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi after Tamil Nadu elections, probably in July.