Saturday, January 14, 2012

The Age of Multi starrer!

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The special treat for all Tamil Film lovers happens this year with many Multi-starrer movies hitting the screen back to back. Well, the multi starrer movie trend is not new to us. But it was dormant for a period of time before. What made the Tamil filmdom to kick away this Multi-starrer saga for some years?

Types of Multi-Starrer:
  •   Hero and Villain: There will be two leading stars performing in the same movie. But one will be a hero and another baddie (Or with a little negative shade)!
  •  Both heroes and never meet: The stars are depicted with utter heroism in their own way but never meet in the movie till the very turning point which is generally kept intact for the climax. Example: STR and Bharath in ‘Vaanam’
  • Super Hero and Follower: One of the stars is shown as a generous and very strong man. The other (mostly a ‘growing-up-star) will be following him and always seeks his help. (Example: ‘Aegan’ (Navdeep and Ajith), ‘Sukran’ (Vijay and Ravikrishna) )
  •  Elderly Hero and a Companion: This is similar to the third case, but here the ultimate story revolves in the hands of the elderly hero! (Example: ‘Anbe Sivam’ (Madhavan and Kamalhaasan)
  • All are heroes: The best multi-starrer type where the leading characters of the plot are shown of equal age, go hands-in together till the end of the story. Do you think this is difficult for Tamil Cinema? Sometimes, quite not that easy when one of the leading stars is having a huge fan following compared to other.

Yes. I do talk about ‘Nanban’ and ‘Vettai’ which hit screens within a gap of single day. In the former, the trio comprising of Vijay, Jiiva and Srikanth have already stirred up great expectations among the fans. Many critics cited that Shankar could be at fault by choosing Vijay for a story which has no fights, a major hit nationwide and of course the one that had a perfect casting. Well, Shankar was quite successful even before the movie release by keeping his fingers over the perfect cast. This made the other things easy for the movie. Even the selection of the actors for the leading roles created a big buzz among the audience. Now the film being released, the audience will watch it out primarily for the excitement of seeing some leading stars shaking legs together…

Coming to the latter, Vettai comprise of Madhavan and Arya. Both the heroes are not new for multi-starrers. They are basically performers getting encumbered to the story always. Arya who is known to team up with his contemporary stars like Vishal (‘Avan Ivan’), Navdeep (‘Arindhum Ariyamalum’), Jiiva (‘BEB’) and many more joins for a commercial pot boiler with the ‘Alaiypayuthey’ hero. Even Maddy is not new for these kinds of many-hero subjects. But it happens for the first time in Kollywood for a ‘Commercial-Entertainer’ genre.

Some of the previous movies which had ‘multi-starrers’ was made to work out serious themes where there was a necessity to cast a star (who performed positive (aka) hero roles) in anti-hero form. An example was when Ajmal was required to do a villain role in ‘Ko’ with Jiiva as hero. The director used a technique to keep in secret the nature of the villain who was disguised within smart-looking guy like Ajmal.

Speaking the truth, these kinds of multi-starrers are not new for us. We had it right from the MGR-Sivaji (“Koondukili”) days to Rajni-Kamal (“Ninathaale Inikkum”) and then there were many notable movies on the way. But after this period, these types of movies began to fade away. How many knew that Ajith and Vijay acted together for a movie? (Thanks to the Techofes Quiz).

It’s quite absurd to compare Kollywood with Bollywood where multi-starrers are abundant and easy to be made. But it is time to think beyond stardom. Each movie is special for its story and not for the hero. A hero should be remembered for the story than the corollary. Even Vijay who had an onscreen chemistry with Surya (beginning days) had to wait for so many years to team with some other heroes in the lead.  The difficulty happens when there is an overshadowing of one over the other. This may spoil the plot, or sometimes their off screen relationship too. When a hero generously accept the story in its way and bend him for its course, then a multi-starrer would be a cake-walk for the Tamil Industry. Despite upholding one man as the hero, why can’t they give way for the story? The major reason for snubbing this trend is due to the embossment of a hero’s image. What happens if he is paired with an equal one? The answers are like creative difference, ideology-clash, and screen –space variations….and so on! By the time people list out the reasons, there are still some film-makers who manage to prove the otherwise.