Move over, Bollywood: Indians flock to Tamil blockbuster

Chaos broke out in parts of southern India yesterday as the country's most expensive film to date opened to huge crowds and scenes little short of hysteria.

At some cinemas, fans poured milk over cardboard cut-out images of the film's stars - a good-luck tradition normally reserved for deities - while elsewhere there were riots.

The film, Sivaji: The Boss, cost more than $15m (£8m) to make, a huge sum for Indian movies. But unlike most Indian blockbusters the film was not a product of Bollywood but rather Kollywood - the Tamil language film industry based in and around the city of Chennai, formerly known as Madras.

Tickets for the film, which opened early in around 600 cinemas across the south of the country, sold out weeks in advance with interest only heightened by the studio's decision not to reveal any details of the plot.

Yesterday it was revealed that the film - accompanied of course, by a slew of songs and dances - has an anti-corruption theme and acts as a commentary on a world where "the poor get poorer and the rich get richer".

The star of the film is Rajinikanth, 57, a huge regional star whose flamboyance may have earned him even more fans than the biggest stars of Bollywood. This latest outing - more than 18 months in production - was said to be his 100th Tamil language film.

At cinemas across the south, film fans started queuing hours before dawn and in some places there were reports of riots as people fought to get inside to see the film. In Chennai some people had put up signs urging fans not to waste milk by dousing it on the stars' images.

"First day, first show. Nothing less when it is Rajinikanth's film," Mayilraj, a middle-aged fan waiting to see the film in Mumbai, told the Reuters news agency. "I have tickets for every day for the next week. I have different sets of friends to watch the film with."

The story of Rajinikanth, whose real name is Sivaji Rao Gaekwad, has added to his continuing and huge appeal. The actor, whose trademark is to throw a cigarette into the air, catch it in his lips and then light it in one seamless movement, previously worked as a bus conductor in Bangalore while also appearing in stage work.

For years he survived as a struggling actor who was not taken seriously by the critics before striking it big with the fans. Even today his appeal remains a regional phenomenon, partly because his films are not understood in the north of the country.

But in the south, Rajinikanth has no rivals and on occasions when film directors have tried to kill off one of his film characters, fans have threatened to burn down cinemas.

His previous film, 2005's Chandramukhi, has just completed 800 successive showings in at least one southern cinema.

Meanwhile, away from the movies the heartthrob, honoured several times by the Indian government for his work for the country's cinema industry, has dabbled in politics, reportedly influencing the outcome of a regional election in the state of Tamil Nadil.

And Rajinikanth - a man who sports a bewildering number of looks and hairstyles - is showing no signs of slowing up. He is now scheduled to work on an animated film entitled Sultan: The Warrior, to be directed by his daughter, Soundarya Rajnikanth.

That film - out next year - is also expected to break records, becoming India's costliest animated movie.