Robo
So all eyes and are waiting for `Robo' the movie and the ears have already got its fodder in the `Robo' music that was released on Aug 6. This Shankar's futuristic film `Robo' will be a real science-fiction in Telugu after many decades. It is also going to be the biggest Telugu film ever made not just in terms of the money spent on production but also on the line up cast and crew assembled for the film. It stars Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles. Other major stars in the film include Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam and Kalabavan Mani. The film is a trilingual having Tamil, Telugu and Hindi versions.
Rajini plays dual roles in `Robo'. One is a scientist Vaseegaran and the other is a Robot called Chitti. The scientist Rajini creates an android man with artificial intelligence - like that of sixth sense in humans - which looks exactly like him and behaves too like a human to help mankind. But the robot later acquires more human characters. He through technical upgrades and becomes almost human. It falls in love with Aishwarya Rai and writes romantic poems besides doing many other things. Knowing about the extra ordinary intelligence of the Robot the villains lead by Danny Denzongpa try to get control of the Robot. Scientist Rajini then fights to save the Robot falling into the hands of the enemies and destroys the evil forces using the Robot itself.
`Robo' was a dream of director Shankar. After the stupendous success of `Sivaji' in 2007, Shankar decided to go ahead with the project. The story was developed by Sujatha. He was the one who wrote the finest sci-fi novel `En Iniya Iyanthira'(Tamil). He must have been inspired a lot by the Issac Asimov's robot story `Bicentennial Man' published in 1975.
If the Tamil film is going to be the biggest ever film who else but the Super Star fit to head the film? The Super Star was signed. For the heroine Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone were considered and Ash was finalized. For the main villain Telugu star Chakravarthi was first considered and later the Bollywood legend Danny Denzongpa was signed. All most all the biggest names in Indian cinema were tossed up to do at least a character.
In January 2008 `Robo' was announced to be produced by Ayngaran International along with Eros Labs. The film was growing and the budget was escalating. At one point the international production companies wanted to leave the project and Sun Pictures came to the rescue. In 2009 `Robo' was officially taken over by Sun Pictures.
After Sun Pictures took over, the 200-crore film progressed fast and got completed in July 2010. The first schedule of `Robo' commenced with the filming of "Kilimanajro" song featuring Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai at the historic location of the Machu Picchu in Peru. The final schedule was fittingly wrapped up at the Sun Studios in Chennai.
The technical crew of `Robo' is hand picked by Shankar from all over the world comprising the best of the world.
The script is by late Sujatha, Shankar and Balakumaran. Yuen Woo Ping who designed action scenes for films like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Forbidden Kingdom is the stunt co-co-ordinator for `Robo'. Also our own Peter Hein has done a great job.
Stan Winston Studios which handled visual effects for iconic films like Aliens, Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park took care of the animatronics in the film. Shankar has used animatronics technology, seen in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park trilogy for `Robo'.
The spectacular effects are made real by the superior combination lighting cinematography of Rathnavelu. Editing is by Anthony and the dance choreography for `Robo' is by Raju Sundaram and Claudia Bruckmann.
Industrial Light & Magic that handled the special effects for films like Avatar, Star Wars, and Titanic worked on visual and special effects. Buzz says about 40 per cent of the budget was spent on the special effects.
And for the music there is no comparison. The audio of `Robo' was officially released on July 31. The best thing about the songs of `Robo' is that they are A Rajini Rahman numbers. In his earlier films for Rajini ARR stayed away from his style of music and blended with the Super Star image more. But in `Robo' both high values are independent yet complementing each other.
With `Robo', Kalanidhi Maran and Hansraj Saxena of Sun Pictures are debuting as official producers. Sun Pictures has tied up with the reputed international distributors HBO to release `Robo' with English subtitles in the West. `Robo' is expected to hit world screens with nearly 1500 prints in three languages. In the process for the first time China will screen a Rajini film.
Come September, there's no territory left untouched by the magnetism of Super Stat Rajinikath. With stunning film like `Robo', Kollywood is surely all set to make a mark in world cinema.