Kabali (film)

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Kabali
Rajinikanth in Kabali.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Pa. Ranjith
Produced by
Kalaipuli S. Thanu
Written by
Pa. Ranjith
Starring
Rajinikanth
Winston Chao
Radhika Apte
Music by
Santhosh Narayanan
Cinematography G. Murali
Edited by
Praveen K.L[1]
Production
company
V Creations
Distributed by Gemini Film Circuit
Release dates
22 July 2016[2]
Running time
152 minutes[3]
Country India
Language
Tamil
Budget ?100 crore (US$15 million)[4]
Kabali is a 2016 Indian Tamil-language gangster-drama film written and directed
by Pa. Ranjith.[5] The film stars Rajinikanth as the title character, whilst Tai
wanese actor Winston Chao, Radhika Apte, Dhansika, Dinesh Ravi, Kalaiyarasan, an
d John Vijay star in other pivotal roles. Principal photography for the film beg
an on 21 August 2015 in Chennai. While filming mostly occurred in Malaysia, smal
ler scenes were shot in Bangkok and Hong Kong.[6][7][8][9] The film was released
on 22 July 2016.[10][11]
Contents [hide]
1
Plot
2
Cast
3
Production
3.1
Development
3.2
Casting
3.3
Filming
4
Release
4.1
Marketing
4.2
Online piracy issue
5
Music
6
Critical reception
7
References
8
External links
Plot
Kabaleeshwaran (Rajinikanth) is released after 25 years from imprisonment after
being falsely accused of starting a massacre that killed many including his fami
ly. Kabali returns to Kuala Lumpur where his house is located. His friend, Ameer
(John Vijay), takes him to the Free Life Foundation School, where kids who are
involved in criminal activities are sent to for rehab. Kabali enlists an enthusi
astic and tough man named Jeeva (Dinesh Ravi) as his new aide. When confronting
Loga (Mime Gopi), Loga tells Kabali that his wife would have been sold for a goo
d rate had she been alive. Kabali than answers by ramming his car into Loga, kil
ling him. Kabali then starts to think that his family may be alive. Later, Kabal
i is nearly assassinated by Thamizh Kumaran, whose father was killed by Kabali.

Kabali's enemies, Veera and Tony Lee, hire a mercenary named Yogi (Dhansika) to
kill Kabali. The next day, at a graduation event for the Free Life kids, Kabali
tells his life experience.
Kabali was the protege of a good gangster named Tamilnesan (Nassar). Veera also
worked for Tamilnesan but did not like his rules. So, Veera killed Tamilnesan. K
abali then became the head of the gang. Tamilmaaran, the son of Tamilnesan, beca
me jealous and invited Kabali and his pregnant wife, Kumudhavalli (Radhika Apte)
to a temple function, which turned out to be a trap. In the ensuing battle, Kum
udha was seemingly killed and Kabali killed Tamilmaaran for his treachery. Kumar
an saw Kabali killing his dad. The police arrested Kabali on a false charge.
Back to the present, Thamizh Kumaran then seeks forgiveness from Kabali and reve
als that he knows how to find his mom. Kabali, Jeeva and Kumaran interrogate a p
arking garage officer and he reveals that a nurse had said Kumadha was still ali
ve. He says that Velu had gone inside. The officer says that Velu live in Thaila
nd. the trio travel to Thailand and find Velu. Jeeva and Kumaran beat Velu until
he reveals that Kabali's daughter is alive. However, Yogi and her partners arri
ve and hold the three at gunpoint. However, Yogi kills her partners, and reveals
she is Kabali's daughter. They escape and go into hiding. Yogi reveals that Kum
udha is still alive and is in India. Kabali and Yogi go to Pondicherry and have
a happy reunion with Kumudha. However, tragedy occurs when they return to Malays
ia. Ameer was severely injured in a car accident set up by Tony Lee. When Kabali
, Kumudha, and Yogi visit Ameer in the hospital, Yogi finds a box containing the
bloodied arm of Jeeva, who was severely attacked and beaten by Tony's men befor
e getting sliced into pieces by Tony. Kabali decides to finish them once and for
all.
While at a birthday party for a respected don, who invited every single gang in
Malaysia, Kumudha and Yogi leave early with Kumaran, who is revealed to have joi
ned Tony Lee when Kabali and Yogi were in India. Kabali kills a drunk Veera at t
he party. Kumaran captures Yogi and brings her to Tony, who has escaped to his h
otel room. Tony then finds out that Kumaran had told Kabali that he pretended to
join Tony so that Kabali will be able to get to him easier. Kabali arrives and
a shootout ensues, which ends with Kabali shooting Tony off the building.
A few months later, at a function for Free Life Foundation, Tiger, a free life g
raduate who is known to be aggressive and reckless walks up to Kabali. The scree
n cuts to black, and the sound of a gun clicking and a gunshot afterwards is hea
rd.
Cast
Rajinikanth as Kabaleeshwaran
Winston Chao as Tony Lee [12]
Radhika Apte as Kumudhavalli[13]
Dhansika as Yogi
Dinesh Ravi as Jeeva[14]
Kishore as Veerasekaran
Kalaiyarasan as Thamizh Kumaran
John Vijay as Ameer
Riythvika as Meena[15][16]
Rosyam Nor[17]
Mime Gopi as Loganathan (Loga)
Nassar as Tamilnesan
R. Amarendran as Velu
Uday Mahesh as Durai
Gajaraj as Marthandam
Charles Vinoth as Tamilmaaran
Nandakumar as Anbu
Sampath Ram as Sampath

Sangili Murugan
Vittal Prasad
'Johnny' Hari as Tiger
Production
Development
In June 2015, director Pa. Ranjith announced his third directorial venture, whic
h would follow his previous two films Attakathi (2012) and Madras (2014), with R
ajinikanth via Twitter. Rajinikanth had been impressed with Ranjith's work in Ma
dras (2014) and subsequently Rajinikanth's daughter, Soundarya, asked Ranjith to
work on a script for her father.[18] Working with Ranjith would make Kabali Raj
inikanth's first film with a novel director for the first time since his collabo
ration with S. Shankar in Sivaji (2007).[19] In an interview with IndiaGlitz, pr
oducer S. Thanu revealed that Rajinikanth had personally asked him to produce th
e Ranjith-directed film. The producer's commercially successful Bairavi (1978) w
as Rajinikanth's first lead role film and the two had not collaborated since.[20
] It was speculated that Rajinikanth's role would be based on a real-life mob bo
ss from Chennai.[21] Santhosh Narayanan was confirmed as the film's music compos
er, continuing his partnership with Ranjith after the latter's previous two film
s. Ranjith also retained G. Murali, the cinematographer of Madras.
On 17 August 2015, Ranjith announced the title of the film to be Kabali and that
Rajinikanth would play the role of Kabaliswaran.[22] The makers of the film had
earlier considered using title Kaali, which was the title of Rajinikanth's 1980
film. As that film did not do well in the Tamil Nadu box office at the time, th
e makers passed on using it for the new film. Another title, Kannabhiran, was al
so considered but it was later found that the title's rights were already held b
y director Ameer Sultan for a future film.[23]
Casting
In the film, Rajinikanth plays the role of an aged crime boss.[24] According to
the Telugu newspaper Eenadu, Rajinikanth, after being impressed with Nayakan (19
87), requested its director Mani Ratnam to write a similar script, but the proje
ct never materialised; its similarities with Ranjith's script for Kabali made hi
m accept to star in the latter film.[25] Dinesh Ravi, who played the lead in Ran
jith's Attakathi (2012), and Kalaiyarasan, who played pivotal roles in both of t
he director's previous films, were also confirmed to be part of the film. An imp
ortant role was offered to Prakash Raj initially,[26] but later it was said that
the role was declined due to scheduling issues and John Vijay was cast for the
role instead.[27] It was later confirmed that the role of the lead character's w
ife would be given to Radhika Apte, who was introduced to Tamil films through Dh
oni (2012).[28] Dhansika was signed to play a supporting character in the film.[
29]
Filming
On 18 August 2015, director Pa Ranjith announced on his Twitter page that princi
pal photography would begin the following week,[30] which was confirmed on 22 Au
gust when Behindwoods covered a photo shoot which took place on 21 August at AVM
Studios in Chennai. First schedule of the filming started on Vinayagar Chaturth
i on 17 September 2015 at the Russian Centre of Science and Cultural in Chennai.
[31]
Release
Kabali is expected to be released in Tamil worldwide, along with dubbed versions
in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, and Malay.[32] The film will be simultaneously rel
eased in Singapore and Indonesia.[33] Malik Streams Productions and Distribution
, a Malaysian media company, will simultaneously release the film in Malay for e
xclusive screening in Malaysia alongside the original Tamil version.[34] The fil
m will also be dubbed in Thai and Chinese, where talks are under way to simultan
eously release the film in Hong Kong and China.[35][36] Kabali will also premier
e at the Le Grand Rex in Paris, France.[37] The satellite rights of the film wer

e sold to Jaya TV.[38]

Marketing
The Malaysian airline, AirAsia became an official partner for Kabali and certain
AirAsia planes will be painted with a Kabali theme.[39][36] The Indian financia
l company Muthoot FinCorp who is also an official partner of the film produced s
ilver coins embossed with the image of actor as cast in the film.[40][41] Its te
aser trailer was released in April 2016 and went viral in Asia and gained 5 mill
ion views in less than 24 hours becoming the most viewed teaser in Asia.[42][43]
By 28 May, the Kabali teaser garnered 20 million views, making it one of the mo
st watched Indian film teasers.[44][45]
Online piracy issue
On July 19, 2016, three days prior to the film's worldwide release, it was repor
ted that pirated copies of the film were leaked online in darknet.[46] The India
n Express reported that although the leaked copies were available only in the da
rknet, lots of fake links were being circulated in the web. The makers of the fi
lm had approached Madras High Court in anticipation of piracy and had requested
the authority to ensure that it does not happen.[47] CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani
commented on the issue by saying that the leak had nothing to do with his office
in Mumbai and reiterated the fact that Kabali, a Tamil film, was certified by C
BFC's Chennai office. He also added that the leak would not have much effect on
the film's box office collection.
Two days later, on July 21, 2016, a two-minute long sequence of the film was als
o leaked online, which subsequently went viral on instant messaging app, WhatsAp
p.[48] Commenting on the leak, producer Kalaippuli S Thanu said, "Watching Thala
ivar entry on phone or computer won't give you goosebumps. Say thank you to pira
tes, let's watch it in theaters from Friday" through his Twitter account. The NE
WS MInute reported that the sequence leak, which carried English as well as Arab
ic subtitles, could have been released from Gulf countries.[49]
Music
Kabali
Kabali Album Cover.jpg
Album Cover for Kabali
Soundtrack album by Santhosh Narayanan
Released
12 June 2016
Recorded
2015-2016
Genre Feature film soundtrack
Length 20:05
Label Think Music
Producer
S. Thanu
Santhosh Narayanan chronology
Iraivi
(2016) Kabali
(2016) Kodi
(2016)
Think Music has acquired the audio rights for the Tamil version, as well as the
dubbed Telugu and Hindi versions.[50] The original Tamil soundtrack album featur
ing five songs was released on 12 June 2016.[51] According to Thanu, S. P. Balas
ubrahmanyam, who usually sings the introduction songs of films starring Rajinika
nth, was not hired for this album because he was not in the city at the time of
recording.[52]
Track listing
No.
Title Writer(s)
Singer(s)
Length
1.
"Ulagam Oruvanukka"
Kabilan, Vivek, Roshan Jamrock Ananthu, Santhos
h Narayanan, Gana Bala, Roshan Jamrock 04:02
2.
"Maya Nadhi"
Uma Devi
Ananthu, Pradeep Kumar, Shweta Mohan

04:35
3.
"Veera Thurandhara"
Uma Devi, Roshan Jamrock
Gana Bala, Lawre
nce R., Pradeep Kumar, Roshan Jamrock 03:17
4.
"Vaanam Paarthen"
Kabilan Pradeep Kumar 04:52
5.
"Neruppu Da"
Arunraja Kamaraj
Arunraja Kamaraj, Rajinikanth
03:38
Total length:
20:05
Critical reception
Kabali was a highly anticipated film throughout the country, including cities li
ke Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. The film received mixed reviews and
mixed audience response.[53][54] [55][56]
IndiaGlitz.com rated the film 3 out of 5 and called it "A very different Rajinik
anth Experience".[57]
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