Secret behind Rajini's success

By: Settu Shankar
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Only Rajini knows the secret behind his success though people may quote different reasons behind it. The actor is of the opinion that one should not listen to what others say before reaching the target. Rajinikanth doesn't listen to others when he sets out for something. This seems to have made him such a successful actor.

On his acceptance speech at a function arranged to celebrate the historical achievement of his film Chandramukhi on completing 804th days of screening, Rajinikanth said, "804 days continues run of a film is not an ordinary thing these days, as piracy and parallel entertainments are rampant. It has taken nearly 52 years to overtake the record of Haridoss. I don't know whether I will get another chance to participate in such a memorable function. It gives me immense pleasure to see the real hero of Parasakthi, Kalaignar and my guru Balachander. I learned a lot and grown up by watching Kamal Hassan. Many don't know the real makers of Haridoss. They know only about the hero Thiagaraja Bhagavadar. But for Chandramukhi, everybody knows the persons behind the making of the film. It is not a Rajinikanth film. It is solely a Vasu film. I'm just an actor, Vasu is the creator. Likewise, the credit for the success of Shivaji goes to Shankar.

When I saw the movie Apthamitra in Kannada, I felt it would do magic at the box office. Because, there are many unexpected scenes in that film. Truly, it is a new experience to my fans. Vasu had a little hesitation before the start of the film. He requested me to give two more days to give a new shape to the Tamil version. After two days, he came with a new idea.

According to his narration, Chandramukhi had to perform dance programme amidst thousands of viewers and then Vettaiyan had to enter into the open stage along with his seven clones. After this scene, Vasu developed the chapter into three reels. These scene too turned very powerful and established Vettaiyan character strongly. I felt that the character of Chandramukhi had disappeared before the powerful Vettaiyan and expressed the same to Vasu. But Prabhu did not buy my point and he even compelled Vasu to remove the entire Chandramukhi scenes. But it was Ramkumar, who made Prabhu to accept the importance of Chandramukhi. Prabhu had registered the title Vettaiyan and he told later that he would make the episode as a separate movie.

When we started the movie, some people rushed to watch the original Malayalam version Manichitrathazh and said the film would not run even two weeks. Somebody went to Bangalore to watch Apthamitra. They said that Chandramukhi would be a flop and taken away from the theaters within a week. I would like to tell a story to you. There are three frogs climbing up a mountain to reach the target. But, many said lots of negative things to disappoint the frogs. One frog fell down from the first stage after hearing the comments. The second one lost its heart in the second stage. But the third frog did not stop climbing and reached the target. Because the last frog is deaf. Rajinikanth is also deaf when he is on his way to reach the target. This is not my own thought. I have learnt this from our legends MGR, Kalaignar, Shivaji, NTR, Nageshwara Rao and Rajkumar. This is the secret behind the success of Kalaignar. I'm always thankful to him for all his timely help to my new film Shivaji."