Was disappointed for the first 10 minutes of 'Kochadaiyaan': Rajinikanth

Veteran director S.S. Rajamouli applauded Soundarya, “Taking up this project is a big challenge and completing it is the next. All through this project, Soundarya is not only immortalising her father, but someone who is considered ‘God’ by everybody.” He also explained how difficult it is to work on this technology, “Perfor-mance capture is very difficult. Right from the start through to the end product, every step has its own difficulties. What I had done for Eega (Naan Ee in Tamil) is hardly two percent of what she has done for Kochadaiyaan. No where else in the world would we see a movie based on photorealistic motion capture to be completed in two years. She had to keep in mind every little detail. We should feel proud of Soundarya who has got this technology to Hyderabad.”

People at Imax were in for a big surprise when ‘Collection King’ Mohan Babu spilled some beans, “What can I say about my friend? I can write a book on him. We have been friends since 40 years, I can’t speak enough about our friendship. He should be proud of giving birth to a daughter like Soundarya. One of his daughters should have been my daughter-in-law, but that could never happen!” He added, “Every frame of this movie will have great acting. I hope that Soundarya gets an Oscar for this.” Pointing towards Rajinikanth’s wife Mohan Babu said, ‘Look, how simple is the superstar’s wife.” He invited her to the stage to honour her. Later, Rajinikanth thanked him for inviting his wife on to the stage and said ‘it was very heart-touching’.

Rajinikanth’s wife Latha, who Mohan Babu addressed as his sister, has also sung one of the songs for this movie. The proud mother was all praises for her daughter’s directorial venture. She said, “There are no words to express how happy I am. Right now the whole country is praying for her and for the film’s success.” Does this mean that a lot of time over lunch and dinner was spent discussing the movie? Latha disagrees and says, “No, no..not at all.”

The head of Prasads Imax, Ramesh Prasad, said that it took him 11 years to get Rajinikanth to Hyderabad. He went on to reveal that Avatar, which was also made using the same photocapture motion technology, collected around seven crore in Imax alone.

Other guests at the event, Subbirami Reddy, D. Ramanaidu and Dasari Narayana Rao were all praises for Soundarya for taking up this project. Dasari Narayana Rao referred to Soundarya as the hero of the day. He said, “I have seen fathers directing their sons, but nowhere have I seen a daughter directing her father. I am witnessing this after cinema has completed 100 years. It is a proud moment when cinema from South can match up to Hollywood.” He revealed that Rajinikanth had given his remuneration to the distributors, when his movie Baba didn’t do well at the box office; and how he is an actor who will never put a full stop to his acting. He also acknowledged Rajinikanth’s wife Latha for being a pillar of support.

“Rajamouli has told you how difficult it is to make such a movie. I don’t know much about technology. I am just an actor. Kamal Haasan is one the biggest actors that the industry has, he likes to do such technical movies and he loves to direct films. He should have done a film like this, but now I am doing it. It is all because of God’s grace,” said Rajinikanth.

Referring to his health, the actor said that, “Doctors advised me not to act in a film for at least two years. At that time, Soundarya narrated the story of Kochadaiyaan and explained about this technology. I thought that the movie will take at least 10 years and would need a huge budget. But now I am happy that this movie has been completed in two years and my daughter is introducing a new technology to our industry.”

Rajinikanth also shared his experience of watching the movie and said, “I watch every film as an audience. After I saw the 2D version of it, I was disappointed for the first 10 minutes, because it did not look real to me. But after 10 minutes, I got immersed in to the characters and the story and I really loved it.”

Talking about what inspired her to take up this project, Soundarya said, “I have always been passionate about animation. I wanted to immortalise my dad. More than being a daughter, it was the fan in me that made me direct this movie.” She added, “there are no costumes, no make-up, there is nothing…people had to wear body suits and perform. I first had to explain to each actor that how this technology worked and continued to give running commentary during the shooting.”

Explaining the project, she said, “We had to recreate real live characters. There is technology used in every frame. And the project was far more challenging than Avatar. In the blue characters, nobody would care if the nose or the ear were a bit longer, but here I was recreating real live characters. Everything has to look right.” Soundarya added that a lot of technicians from all around the world and many from the city as well were hired for the post-production work.

The director also agreed that they were being over-ambitious and hence the movie had several delays. She said, “Such kind of technology takes time. If you heard Rajamouli explain on stage, movies based on such technology require at least eight to nine years. I think we were being overambitious, when we announced the initial release date, but with the grace of God it’s ready for release now.”

The producer of the movie, Murali Manohar, added, “When we initially announced the date, we had no idea about the elections. We then had to announce another date keeping the elections and the theatre situation in mind.”