I’ve filed this post under "Bollywood" even though this technically isn’t about Bollywood, it’s about the Tamil film industry. Tamil films are largely indistinguishable from Hindi films, except for the weird script, the lower production values, and the second-hightest paid actor in Asia, Rajnikanth, a man so awesome that he’s typically credited in his films as "SUPERSTAR RAJNI."
He seems to be a sort of hybrid of Cheech Marin and Burt Reynolds, or maybe I just can’t get over that mustache.
I first heard about him when I saw this trailer for Sultan the Warrior, a CGI epic starring the computer-distilled screen persona of Superstar Rajni.
While D and Steve and I were stapling squids the other day, we watched his big comeback film from 1999, Padaiyappa, a film about how cool Superstar Rajni is. In every scene he is flanked by flunkies who do nothing but glare at the same things Superstar Rajni is glaring at, as if to prove that Superstar Rajni is every bit as awesome and popular as his first name would lead you to believe.
During musical numbers, Superstar Rajni’s face inexplicably morphs into random images.
Assuming that Padaiyappa is the cream of the Tamil crop, I think I might not watch a whole lot more. It doesn’t have the glitz and the beautiful people I’ve come to expect of Bollywood. But it does have all the length and convoluted narrative. If only I could fast-forward a little faster.