Sivaji (2007)

Sivaji (Rajnikant) is a US-returned software engineer who wants to use his largesse for social good. He decides to start a free medical college, and a free hospital, and faces a number of obstacles en route by way of corrupt officials and a political kingpin who sabotages his work. Beaten down by politicians, he decides to take matters into his own hands by overhauling the entire system using his own private army of supporters. Meanwhile, he romances Tamilselvi (Shriya), who unfortunately has been told by an astrologer that her future husband is doomed to die soon. Loaded with Rajni-style antics such as flicking coins, acrobatically bouncing chewing gum around, and swapping guns from hand to hand whilst flying through the air, the film has a lot to offer for Rajni fans, and also has the usual social development message featuring Rajni as the Messiah. The song picturizations are good and very entertaining. But the film is very long overall flawed by a weak plot, too many repetitive action sequences, and a extremely poor editing.

The Boss

* Originally, Ratnavelu was asked to be the cinematographer of the film, but rejected it because he wanted to work for Sukumar's Jagadam (2007). Eventually, Anand K.V. took the role of cinematography.

* The title track was the first song shot for the film. It was also the most expensive song shot for the film, costing Rs. 3.5 crores.

* The word "Balleilakka" is derived from the balalaika, a Russian guitar.

* The song "Balleilakka" features most of the crew in the film.

* The actresses considered to dance in the item number "Balleilakka" included Sadha, Shilpa Shetty, Manisha Koirala, Bipasha Basu, Asin and Mallika Sherawat. Nayantara finally got the part.

* The song "Style" was originally called "Oru Koodai Sunlight."

* The song "Style" was shot in Bilbao, Spain.

* The song "Sahana" was shot in a glass palace constructed solely for the song at a cost of Rs. 1 crore. After shooting, the palace was taken apart and all the glass panes were sold.

* In the film, "Boss" stands for "Boss of Social Service."

* The casting for the role of Thamizhselvi was legendary, possibly rivalling that of the original Superman (1978). To begin with, Aishwarya Rai had been considered to play the role as a favour for director S. Shankar, who gave her her first hit with Jeans (1998); however, she turned down the role, due to her marriage and crowded filming schedules. Then Ayesha Takia was offered the role, but she turned it down because she had problems with the Tamil language. Next, Rani Mukherjee was offered the role, but she asked too large a fee and so was dropped. Jyothika, Trisha Krishnan. ‘Nayantara (II)' and Sneha were all considered and rejected before finally Shriya was chosen.

* Vadivelu was considered for the role of Sivaji's "Mama" (Uncle), after he received rave reviews for his comic chemistry in Chandramukhi (2005) with Rajnikanth. However, despite these reviews, Vivek was selected.

* After helping make S. Shankar's last film Anniyan (2005) a success, Prakash Raj was almost immediately selected to play the role of Adisesha in this film. However, he couldn't accept the role due to conflicting schedules with other films, so the role was offered to big names like Sathyaraj, Mohanlal, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt and Nana Patekar, before it was finally accepted by Suman.

* The hospital seen in the film was actually a remodelled bank.

* Shivaji is the name of Rajnikanth's character. Rajnikanth's birth name is Shivaji Rao Gaekwad.

* Was set to be released in April 14th 2007, was postponed to May and finally to June 15th 2007. The continuous change in the release date of the film has caused a confusion in the Tamil film industry. Many other big films stayed away because they don't want to clash with Shivaji, in the end there were no big release for the months of April and May. For the first time in the history of Tamil commercial cinema since the 50's there was no big summer release.

* Sivaji is one of the costliest Tamil and Indian film ever made. Rumoured to cost between 650-800 million Indian rupees.

* This is 168th film for AVM, the production company and the 100th Tamil film (not counting his other language films) for Rajinikanth.

* The movie was released with 4600 prints worldwide and created a record in India as the only movie to be screened with more than 700 shows on a single day. Hyderabad (142 shows) and Chennai (140 shows) together account for 282 shows on it's first day.

* First Tamil film and the first non Hindi Indian movie to feature in UK Top 10.

* As of July 2007, “Shivaji” is highest grossing Tamil movie ever. It grossed 100 crores (1 billion) Indian rupees in it's third weekend. First Tamil film and non-Hindi Indian movie to gross 100 crores and also the fastest Indian movie to gross that much.

* Sivaji is the first ever Tamil Movie to appear in the U.K Top Ten. It was released in just 12 screens all over U.K and gained the nineth place.

* Grossed 300 million rupees in it's first weekend. Most Tamil films would not make that amount totally.

* Rajnikanth appears as a white skinned European guy in a song sequence. The Digital skin grafting effects used to create the dark skinned Rajini into a white skin guy took almost one year with the help of 25 technicians. All this, with the help of computer graphics that lifts a European woman's skin and grafts it into the superstar's face. Each of the over 6,500 frames had to be worked on individually and he same process has been used to create an almost black Rajini in the song sequence too. This process is said to be the first in world cinema, if not in Indian cinema. "Whatever shot we took with Rajini sir, we took with a white girl we selected. We went for the girl because she would have softer skin and flushed cheeks. We took the tone and texture from her face and applied it on his face," said cinematographer 'Anand K. V.' .

* Sivaji is the first Indian film to incorporate the latest 4K resolution technology that is used only on big-budget Hollywood films. In India, 2K resolution for digital intermediate (DI) is the set standard.