THE AGE OF SUPER HEROES

IT'S THE DAWN OF THE SOUTH INDIA HERO WHO SEEMS TO BE DONNING A CULT STATUS WITH THE MULTILINGUAL BIG BUDGET LARGER-THAN-LIFE FILMS THAT ARE HERE TO STAY

- Namita Gupta

It's larger than life. It's bigger and better. Big budget movies are back with a bang. It's time to celebrate the hero and get into some hero worship mode. A trend that has come and gone with Rajinikanth and come back and this time it looks like it's here to stay. Among all the recent big-budget movies - like Pushpa, RRR, KGF Chapter 2, Beast, Radhe Shyam and others like Vikranth Rona in the pipeline, one thing that stood out was the hero. The real crowd puller, who jumped out of nowhere, walked in slow motion with a swag that could kill and with or without arms and ammunition; killed hundreds of his enemies at one go, as his fans hooted, whistled and continued to want more and more of their superhero with special effects. Yash, Ram Charan, Jr NTR, Allu Arjun, Prabhas and others of their league are international figures of prominence now. The 1000 crore targets are defying all expectations and are not unheard of anymore. Their fans flock for first day first shows imitating their hairstyles, their hero's clothes, their mannerisms for that matter and even learn their favourite hero's punchlines and dialogues by heart. We speak to some of the popular names from the South Indian industry on their opinion of this trend of big-budget hero-oriented blockbuster hits releasing in multiple languages, that portray the protagonist as a larger-than-life superhero, almost a demi-God of sorts.

PRIYAMANI

Better late than never! I'm very happy that the South Indian movies are finally getting their due in the north too and we all are called Indian movies and Indian actors rather than south and north actors. I am so happy to see that they are getting fantastic response from not just everywhere in India, but from people all over the world.

KARTHIK JAYARAM