Sivaji : The boss

Plot

The film begins with a person being cast into the Central Jail in Chennai, India. When asked by another what he did wrong, he says that he tried to do good for the people. We see that this is the protagonist Sivaji (Rajinikanth). A flashback shows when he returned from the US as a Software Systems Architect to Chennai. He has brought Rs. 250 crores that he earned in the US. He intends to start a charity organization called Sivaji Foundation and build hospitals and educational institutions which will serve the poor free of charge. However, he faces roadblocks in the form of bureaucracy and corrupt officials. Setting aside his principles, he bribes his way through the system; mortgaging his house and personal property in the process. Adiseshan (Suman), a politically influential businessman, sees Sivaji Foundation as competition to his business empire. Using his political clout, he repeals the permits issued to the foundation by the government. Sivaji approaches a lawyer, using his car to pay the lawyer's fee. However, in court Sivaji admits to having bribed officials. This undermines his case and the Judge reiterates the staying order on construction by Sivaji foundation.

Meanwhile, he falls in love with Tamizhselvi (Shriya). Tamizhselvi's family is scared by the overbearing nature of Sivaji's family. Sivaji's family wins over Tamizhselvi, but the jaadagam (horoscope) of the two do not match and the astrologer predicts impending doom if the two are united. Unable to bear the thought of being responsible for Sivaji's death, Tamizhselvi refuses Sivaji. Sivaji then convinces her to marry him, saying that each person's fate is in his own hands.
Rajni in the song Athiradee
Rajni in the song Athiradee

By now, Sivaji Foundations has lost all the money. Using a one rupee coin that Adiseshan gives to him in mockery, Sivaji sets out to turn his fortune around by his new avatar the boss. He calculates that there is about Rs. 20,00,000 crores of illegal untaxed money within the nation. He uncovers details about people who possess substantial quantities of illegal money. He then threatens each of them and obtains half of their illegal wealth. After transferring the money to bank accounts around the world, Sivaji informs the Income Tax Vigilance Department about the details of the illegal money held by them. Sivaji's friends now deposit the money sent across the world as donations to the Sivaji Foundations. This makes the money legitimate and usable by Sivaji Foundations. Sivaji begins to realise his dream of providing free, top-quality education, services and jobs for people in every district of Tamil Nadu. Sivaji's enemies wish to find out how he converted their illegal money to a usable form. They approach his wife, Tamizhselvi, and threaten her with danger to Sivaji's life. Fearing for his life, she turns over his Notebook PC with all the information regarding the various money transfers to the Income Tax vigilance department. Sivaji is arrested and the scene from the start of the movie plays through.

Adiseshan plots Sivaji's death; he plans to murder Sivaji and make it look like his enemies bombed the police van he was travelling in. However, Dr. Chezhian (Raghuvaran) and Tamilselvi cart away Sivaji's dead body and plant a dummy in the police van. Everyone is made to believe that Sivaji is dead. However, Dr. Chezhian revives him by using a defibrilator. After a while, he returns to take over the work of Sivaji Foundations once again disguised as Sivaji's friend, M.G. Ravichandran in an excellent fully Bald head. M.G.R. performs a coin trick with the one rupee coin that Sivaji has done throughout the film. Due to this Adhiseshan realises that he is not Sivaji's friend, but Sivaji himself. However, he is unable to prove it when the police, the press and the public all remark that Sivaji was killed when the van he was in was bombed. Finally the movie ends with Adhiseshan getting killed in a stampede.

Cast & Crew
Cast

* Rajinikanth as Sivaji Arumugam: Since the early days of his career, Director S. Shankar had constantly mentioned his desire to work with Rajinikanth, and he had even wrote a tailor-made script for him for his previous release Mudhalvan in 1998 before Rajinkanth had turned it down. After the official announcement of the combination, the film had become much awaited among critics and fans alike. Rajinikanth's character Sivaji is a rich NRI software system architect from the United States, in his late 30s, who returns to his native Tamil Nadu only to find about various mishaps in the education system and the widespread poverty. He is pitted against Adiseshan, who refuses to let him get involved in the proceedings. His parents are played by Manivannan and Vadivvukarasi respectively while his female lover is Tamizhselvi. Since the movie's release, Rajinikanth has received positive reviews for his portrayal by critics.

* Shriya Saran as Tamizhselvi Ramalingham: After filming the movie, she has signed up for movie productions with three other leading South Indian actors. Her character Tamizhselvi, is the daughter of the characters played by PattimandramRaja and small-screen actress and Former News Anchor Uma. During the course of the film, Tamizhselvi is taunted by Sivaji, who falls in love with her, despite being initially rejected because of his horoscope; although she states that it is due to his dark complexion. She finally succumbs to his love and gets married to him. Her role had previously been offered to Aishwarya Rai, Ayesha Takia and Rani Mukherji among other actresses.

* Vivek as Arivu: Vivek, who had appeared in the last couple of Shankar's film, played the role of Sivaji 's maternal uncle. His character Arivu provided the comic relief in the film and played a key role in assisting Sivaji to win over Tamizhselvi. Despite having a minimal role in the second half, Vivek won praise for his role, with some critics claiming it had been his best performance since Anniyan. Another popular South Indian comedian, Vadivelu had been considered for this role.

* Suman as Adisheshan: Suman, making his comeback to Tamil cinema plays Adisheshan a rich and influential industrialist running schools and charitable hospitals to exploit money from the poor. Throughout the film he is clad in white clothes. His character plays a polished villain who is the main hindrance in Sivaji's social works. The role had previously been offered to Prakash Raj, Sanjay Dutt, Mohanlal and Nana Patekar among other actors.

* Raghuvaran as Dr. Chezhian: Raghuvaran appeared in an extended guest role as Dr. Chezhian, the hospital dean of the hospital Sivaji had set up. He eventually becomes a pivotal factor to the reason of Sivaji's comeback against Adiseshan. Before Raghuvaran was confirmed for the role, Amitabh Bachchan was linked to the role.

* Nayantara in an item number: Nayantara appears in the film in a cameo role for the introductory song, Balleilakka. She dances alongside 300 extras and Rajinikanth during the song. Asin Thottumkal and Mallika Sherawat were also majorly linked to the role before Nayantara was chosen.

Crew

* Dialogue writer — Sujatha
* Cinematographer — K. V. Anand
* Stunt master — Peter Hain
* Art director — Thotta Tharani
* Lyricists — Vairamuthu, Vaalee, Na. Muthukumar, Pa. Vijay
* Costume design — Manish Malhotra
* Choreographers — Prabhu Deva, Raju Sundaram, Raghava Lawrence, Brinda
* Editor — Anthony
* Assistant directors — J. D. Jerry, Balaji Sakthivel, Hosimin, Gandhi Krishna
* Music director A.R. Rahman

Production

The Key Elements

The film began its first schedule at AVM Studios situated in Chennai, India on 28 November 2005.[12] The movie's launch was a secret event, with only pivotal members of the cast and crew being called for attendance for the event. Official shooting began at the Ramoji Film City sets in Hyderabad and the first shot was the Vaaji Vaaji song. The costume for this movie was done by a north Indian fashion designer Manish Malhotra who does costume for famous Indian movies.

Casting, location and music

There were initial speculations on who would play the female lead in the movie. Aishwarya Rai, Trisha, Nayanthara and Jyothika were rumoured to bag the role[13] but Shankar and Rajinikanth announced that Shriya Saran would essay the role as Rajinikanth's love interest in October 2005.[14] Kanika, an actress herself was used as the dubbing artist for Shriya.[15]

The role of the antagonist also suffered through the rumour mill with names like Amitabh Bachchan, Mohanlal, Nana Patekar and Prakash Raj linked to the role. In March 2006, Suman was confirmed as the person selected to play the role of villain, opposite Rajinikanth.[16] Suman had earlier acted with Rajinikanth in 1980 in a movie titled Thee (Fire). The names of support cast for the movie was released in a phased manner. Manivannan, M. S. Baskar, Livingston, Vadivukarasi, Pyramid Natarajan, Uma Padmanabhan, Pattimandram Raja, Vannakam Thamizhuzhagam Revathi, Solomon Pappayya, Muthukaalai, Nellai Siva, Bose Venkat and M'Sia Prabhu were selected to play a role by mid 2006. In February 2006, Kumudam magazine came out with a cast list, which included mimicry artists, Cochin Haneefa, Chinni Jayanth and Mayilsaamy.

Development

In 2005, Chennai's oldest operative studio,[17] AVM Productions, run by M. S. Guhan and M. Saravanan approached Shankar in making a film under their production house. Utilising the huge budget available from AVM, Rajinikanth, who had just delivered the biggest hit of Tamil film history - Chandramukhi[18] was signed for the project. The film was eventually named Sivaji, after Rajinikanth's birthname - Sivaji Rao Gaekwad. A tagline, The Boss was also added to the title.[19] The project was announced in August 2005[20]


Unofficial Versions

As Sivaji became a major anticipated project, several false information about the soundtrack of the film were announced to websites and magazines. Despite the fact, that early on during the project, Vairamuthu confirmed he had written a song called, Vaa..ji Vaa..ji Sivaji, no other major details about any other song was mentioned. Rumours went around that certain singers had sung in the project, including Rajinikanth. However on October 11, 2006, the source, Behindwoods.com, mentioned that they had received credible information that Sivaji contained seven songs, five of which were set to be in the audio, with the other two being situational songs. Surprisingly, they also mentioned the five songs which were in the album. Vaa...ji Vaa...ji Sivaji[24] was mentioned to be the opening song of the film. They also reported that a philosophical song titled, Unpeyar Ennada[25] was in the film, as per usual Rajinikanth films since Baba. Another song titled, Jee Boom Ba[26] was mentioned as its picturization was to be filmed in either foreign locations or in Karnataka featuring the lead pair. A song called, Talla Dimi Takka Dimi Pucha..[27] was apparently supposed to contain Japanese lyrics and was set to be filmed in Japan, however the Sivaji crew did not travel to Japan for any purposes during the shoot. The final song mentioned was, Adaal Udan Pesadha Di... En Salangaiku Bhadil Solladi..[28] and it was mentioned as a remix from another film titled Vanjikottai Valiban, Behindwoods.com labelled this song was set to come in the climax. However none of these possible songs barring Vaa..ji Vaa..ji Sivaji. were in the final audio cassette[29]

Before the official audio release on April 2, on March 22, 2007 there was a huge dilemma sparked over the illegal release of three premilinary tracks onto the internet.[30] Songs titled, Vaa..ji Vaa..ji En Jeevan Nee Sivaji, sung by Hariharan and Madhushree[31] Sahana Saaral Thoovudho sung by Udit Narayan and Sujatha[32] and finally a song titled, Oru Koodai Sunlight rendered by Tanvi, Shaggy and Blaaze became available on the internet.[33] However despite the uproar these songs caused, they were dismissed as scratchings for the picturization. Later the tracks were offiically released with Chinmayi instead of Sujatha, in Sahana and Suresh Peters added to the group of singers in Style (Oru Koodai Sunlight).[34]

Official Version

The official audio of Sivaji released in India and overseas on 2nd April, 2007.[35] Unlike, other major films, no pooja was held for the event and the album hit the stands straight away. The original audio cassette cover had an image of four Rajinikanth's on its cover while as the CD version had an image of the lead pair on its cover.[36] The first song in the album, is Balleilakka, which supposedly will feature Rajinikanth dancing with Nayanthara, who is making a guest appearance in the film. It is set to picturize him dancing and singing while returning to Tamil Nadu from the United States of America, with the backdrop of paddy fields. Over four hundred dancing extras will be used in the song including Pulikali artistes from Kerala. The songs lyrics were penned by poet, Na. Muthukumar and the song was sung by, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, who like he did in Amarkalam has sung without stopping for nearly 30 seconds. The other singers are, Rahman's elder sister, Reihana and Telugu language singer Benny.[37]

The second song in the abum, is entitled, Style which is sung by Rags, Tanvi, Blaaze and Suresh Peters. The song was previously titled, Oru Koodai Sunlight and was picturized in Bilbao, Spain. The song praises Rajinikanth's style and hero qualities.[37] The lyrics were penned by poet, Pa. Vijay. The third song is Vaa..ji Vaa..ji Sivaji, which was picturized at Hyderabad's Ramoji Film City, with sets at a cost of three Indian Crores. Reports claim the song picturizes Rajinikanth in knee-length warrior clothing as the King of Egypt and Shriya Saran as Queen. The song penned by Vairamuthu, has renowned singers, Hariharan and Madhushree singing.[37]

The fourth song in the album is Athiradee and is sung by A. R. Rahman and Sayonara with lyrics written from poet, Vaali.[37] The fifth and sixth songs of the album are titled, Sahana and Sahara - one being a peppy rendition and the other being a soulful rendition of the same number. Singing the peppy rendition is Hindi language singer, Udit Narayan with Chinmayi while the soulful rendition singers are Vijay Yesudas with Gomathishree, both songs have the lyrics written by poet, Vairamuthu, who was praised by Rajinikanth personally for his effort.[37] The final song in the album, is a situational theme song entitled, The Boss sung by Naresh Iyer, Blaaze and Raqueeb Alam, with lyrics from Na. Muthukumar and Blaaze.[37]

Songs
No. Song Singers Picturization Length (m:ss) Lyrics Notes
1 Balleilakka S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Reihana, Benny 6.08 Na. Muthukumar sharu
2 Style Blaaze, Tanvi, Rags, Suresh Peters 5.13 Pa. Vijay Previously titled, Oru Koodai Sunlight. Another version was recorded without Suresh Peters

Shaggy was initially called in to sing the song
3 Vaaji Vaaji Hariharan, Madhushree 5.49 Vairamuthu
4 Athiradee A. R. Rahman, Sayonara 5.47 Vaali
5 Sahana Udit Narayan, Chinmayi 5.21 Vairamuthu Another version was recorded with Sujatha in place of Chinmayi
6 The Boss Naresh Iyer, Blaaze, Raqueeb Alam 3.20 Na. Muthukumar, Blaaze
7 Sahara Vijay Yesudas, Gomathishree 4.32 Vairamuthu

Soundtrack Success

The audio of Sivaji, which opened up on April 2, 2007 saw the biggest response to an audio track since the Rajiv Menon multistarrer, Kandukondain Kandukondain, which also had music by A. R. Rahman.[38] There was a pre-order of about 105,000 CDs and 90,000 cassettes, before the release in Tamil Nadu, India. Repeat orders were received even by the close of the first day and many retail outlets reported stock outs.[38] By the end of April 2, the total CD sales has notched up to about 140,000 and cassettes have touched 108,000 sales. On the overseas front, the sales of CDs in Malaysia and Singapore reportedly set new records for Tamil films in terms of the amount of tracks sold.[38]

Within the first three days of the release of the Sivaji audio over 150,000 phone treats (ringtones, truetones and wallpapers) had been downloaded.[39] Over Rs. 5,000,000 ($117,000) has been made from this.[39] On the ring tone department, 200, 000 ring tones have been downloaded as of April 12, 2007. The popularity rating for ring tones of Sivaji songs are – Athiradee tops the list, followed by Vaaji Vaaji and Style finishing a close third.[38]

DVD

The DVD of the film is yet to be released worldwide as the film still runs in theatres in India. An expected release for a DVD of Sivaji is in December.

Publicity & Release
Ratings
Ratings
India: U Rating[2]

The movie received U rating from Indian censor board on 17th May 2007 with minor screen and dialogue cuts,[2] though the exact information of these cuts wasn't officially revealed. The movie received BBFC approval on June 8th 2007.[40].

Special screenings

The movie was screened specially by Rajinikanth for politicians and actors. Rajinikanth flew to Hyderabad to showcase his movie to former AP CM Chandrababu Naidu on June 14, 2007.[41] Rajinikanth told the media that he was going to invite the current AP CM, Rajasekhara Reddy for a special viewing as well. Rajinikanth further claimed that he had screened the movie to TN CM Dr. Karunanidhi and India's finance minister P Chidambaram was keen to watch the movie as well.[42] Jayalalitha, the former TN CM was invited for a special viewing by the producers and Rajinikanth on June 15, 2007,[43] A private screening of the movie was shown by Rajinikanth for Amitabh Bachchan on June 27, 2007.[44]

Box-office

Amol Palekar believes that Sivaji had "the biggest opening so far in history of Indian cinema" with the producers claiming collections of Rs. 2.5 crores in advance booking in India. Even though the film did not have satisfy the unexpected high expectations of the people initially, the situation changed from 2nd week with theaters playing special shows for even 11th weekend. The movie is estimated to have been released in approximately 850[3] - 1000 screens worldwide.[4] and opened to near 100% opening worldwide.[45] Sivaji was released in 16 theatres in Chennai and is reported to have collected Rs. 1.35 crores in the first four days, a record for Tamil movies. Overall, in Tamil Nadu, the movie was released in 300 theatres while the Telugu dubbed version was released in 50 theatres. The movie also debuted well in Kerala and in Bangalore, despite protests from pro-kannada groups, the movie debuted in 13 theatres.[46] In the nation's capital, New Delhi, the movie debuted on 4 screens in PVR Cinemas[3] and based on what the distributors claim as "overwhelming response to the film", the number of screens were increased to 12 by the second week.[47] The movie made great debut in the nation's other metros as well - Mumbai[46] and Kolkata.[48] Even in non-traditional markets for Tamil movies like Pune[49] and Baroda,[50] the movie made a big opening. On July 15, 2007, AVM Studios, the producers of the movie announced a decision to dub the movie in Hindi because of "the response has been phenomenal for the movie".[51]

Sivaji had made excellent screenings in Malaysia. The film also caused a riot to break out in three states due to delays and cancellations of the screenings.[52] The film finally opened locally in 1 Utama Shopping Center, Bandar Utama by Minister of Works Samy Vellu, Ajith Kumar and Nayantara as special guest for the opening ceremony. Sivaji: The Boss debut across 56 screening in Malaysia. Sivaji had made a record in Malaysian movie screening where Sivaji: The Boss movie broke the previous highest opening day gross at RM 500,000. Previously the record was held by Jeans at RM 350,000 another superhit movie by S. Shankar, A R Rahman, Prasanth and Aishwarya Rai combinations in 1998. As at 15th August 2007 the film reportly collected RM 8.5 million in Malaysia.

Sivaji made a perfect debut in the international market as well with 150 screenings of the movie in Singapore.[5] In Chennai, the movie debuted across 70 theatres with all 700 shows running at near 100% capacity.[53] In the Gulf region, with the large Indian diaspora, the movie opened to unsurprisingly, full houses. A NPO distributed 1,000 tickets to labourers and domestic help across Dubai to enable them to watch the movie.[54] In UK, the movie debuted on the box-office list at No. 9 earning about £14 thousand per screen - the highest in 2007[55] . It is the first South Indian movie to enter UK Top 10 and gave a big recognition for Tamil movies in international market. In USA, Sivaji was released in 24 theaters with 19 more added subsequently for the Tamil version and 21 theaters ran the Telugu version[56] . The producers of the movie claimed that the movie was going to be dubbed in Chinese and Japanese by Ayngaran International, the holder of International rights of the movie.[51]

The Sivaji success story moved to Ulu Tiram, Johor August first week when the film opened in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. While the response in Cape Town was disappointing, the Johannesburg and Durban venues ensured that it became the first Tamil film to feature in the South African box-office top 10. [57]Sivaji is expected to gross Rs.150+ crore at the box office.

Controversies & Influences

Controversies

The movie attracted criticism and legal cases with charges of plagiarism and defamation cited as reason to stop the screening of the movie. Though the courts have responded by issuing notices to concerned parties, the screening of the movie has not been stopped. Jaya Rajadevan, who is credited as an assistant director in the movie, moved to a civil court to stop screening of the movie on charges of plagiarism against the movie director, Shankar. Rajadevan claimed that he wrote the story and discussed it with Shankar's manager in 2005. The court sent notices to Shankar and others but the screening of the movie was not stopped.[58]

M Satyamoorthy, on July 9, 2007 seeking a ban on the screening of the film as it defamed the party as well as it's president Sonia Gandhi apart from India's current PM Manmohan Singh. Satyamoorthy was referring to a scene in which the portraits of these two leaders are seen behind the chair of the villain, thus implying that the villain was a member of the Congress (I) party.[59] He has also claimed Rs. 50 crores ($12.5 million) as damages from the film producer, director and the lead actor to be paid to the Tamil Nadu wing of the party.[60]

Finally the judgement day has come. The Titanic ship Sivaji has started its sail from today. Among its creators Rajni shines on screen. So one could easily say that this is a normal Shankhar balloon like gentleman or Anniyan,but its Rajni who blows this balloon into a Titan. AVM’s generosity provides a great treat to the audience. This movie is led by leading people, so once again they have proved that their artmenship is mind blowing. As usual Rajni swallows the character as well as director into him and spits out a Rajni movie,appealing to the masses. But other than his same old formula, Shankar rocks. People always wanted to see Rajni in the driver’s seat of Shankar’s car and thats what this movie is. But here its the super driver who dominates than the owner of the car.

The plot is from the same old locker which has its password as S-H-A-N-K-A-R. But this time its on a different platform. Sivaji{Rajnikanth} a software professional comes back from America with a lot of hard earned cash{exactly its 10 dollars less than 250 crores!} And he wants to start charity institutions like colleges and hospitals and serve the needy. Meanwhile he searches for a Tamil cultured bride for him and discovers Tamilchelvi{Shreya} in a Temple while birdwatching with Arivu{Vivek}, his mother’s brother.Following this he devises plans to move closely with Tamilchelvi’s family which culminates in their betrothal.When Sivaji unrolls the ideas which were in his mind, he gets away from the good books of Adhi Seshan{Suman} who is the king maker as well as head of similar institutions.Sivaji ignores his creeps and proceeds ahead,but only to meet the corrupted money hungry officials asking him to bribe them to work in his favour. Reluctantly he feeds the money hungry dogs, when Adhi Seshan crawls in once again and reverses the political situation{You too Shankar!}. His next step makes Sivaji a pauper though he tries to sail out of the situation in a life boat named law. Now Sivaji becomes a Sivaji’s debutant character in Parasakthi left with only a rupee. Then Sivaji decides to take up the lion’s path at the interval. One could easily investigate the rest of the story. The first half has nothing but the Vivek’s agmark comedy , Shreya’s romance and her skin show in the songs ending in a venomous act of Adhi Seshan. In the second half Sivaji uses some funny methods{!} to extract money from the black money ores and uses it for his institutional work. Inbetween he gets married to Shreya. After this the story makes a few swings and ends when Sivaji turns into MGR!. “This is only the trailer, you’ve got to see the full picture”

Shankar’s same old formula ie , common people , corrupted white collars and a mediatory hero is repeated once again in this movie{repeattu!}. This may be appealing to common people since it has a tinge of pathos it. But in the long run, today there are a lot of directors who could do the same thing, so we expect something fresh from Shankar. Shreya gets in and gets out of the stage like a sexy doll and makes a glamorous skin show. Rajni says that he loves Shreya because of her Tamil culture, but she is TamilChelvi only in the story, but in the songs she is “Bikini Selvi”. Actually glamour had been stuffed in where there its not required, this becomes too superficial. Also the villains are treated as mere fools and brainless idiots as in a nasty commercial movie.Though this is a superstar’s action filled candy,the taste of violence is too much. But since we see Rajni fighting, it’s cool!.Definitely Rajni roars in this movie but as an aged lion

Rajni’s style , fancy actions and punch dialogues rocket this movie up. Especially “the cool” dialogue is really hot! Rajni’s makeup and extra fittings are above the mark and they reminds us {g}olden movies of Rajni. Coming to the punches, “Kanna,Pannithan kumbala varum , Singam singlathan varum” {Hogs come in herds and lion comes alone}is extraordinary. Technically speaking, Rajeevan,Anthony and K.V.Anand have done their work extremely well. Especially Anand’s camera is even better than hollywod cams. So atleast in the technical regard we stand above the western cinema.Going further the sets for the songs reminds us T.R’s song sequences though the money spent hits our eyes. The climax fight is well done and receives hails. Apart from Rajni Vivek Suman and Shreya Manivannan,Vadivukkarasi,Raja,Uma and Solomon Pappaiya are cool! Raguvaran does a “guest-like role” to perfection. So totally Sivaji is worth the hype. If you are a Rajni fan you’ll love this movie 90%. If you are a Shankar fan you will love this movie 40%. But if you are a techy you will love this movie 100%. So Sivaji proves, style+technology———–>Stechyle + box office. Idhu epdi irukku?