Rajinikanth's KABALI Teaser Is Here, Make Way For The Superstar!

It's that time again. Tamil cinema legend "Superstar" Rajinikanth is starring in an upcoming film titled Kabali and the first trailer dropped on Sunday morning to an incredible response. Within one hour, the 67-second trailer had registered a million views on YouTube, and now about 36 hours later it's sitting a hair under seven million views. That's pretty incredible by any standard.

Kabali marks a departure for Rajinikanth in that it is the first time in a long while that he will be playing a character around his own age. For the last decade, at least, Rajini has been playing characters in their '20s and '30s, but with Kabali he ditches the jet black wigs for a much more distinguished salt and pepper look. There's precious little plot in the trailer, but what we do see looks like a lot of fun. 

Rajini is joined in Kabali by the incredibly talented Radhika Apte. Apte has appeared in films like X - Past is Present, Balakrishna's Lion, Manjhi with Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and just won an acting award at the TriBeCa Film Festival for her performance in Anurag Kashyap's segment of the omnibus film, Madly. Apte is one of India's finest young actresses and I sincerely hope she's given someting substantial to do in Kabali, as actresses tend to be overwhelmed by male superstars in this type of vehicle.

On a more sobering note, Rajinikanth's films always appear with a flood of sensationalism, however it's been a few years since he delivered an out and out success. His last two films, 2013's Kochadaiyan and 2015's Lingaa, were both both office flops, and fairly poor films on top of it all. In spite of Rajini's overpowering charisma, the films felt very forced, and in each case rushed. It hasn't been since 2010's Enthiran (Robot) that Rajinikanth delivered a solid critical and box office hit. That film was goofy as all hell, but it understood its audience and swung for the fences.

Kabali was directed by Pa. Ranjith, a relative newcomer with some critical success, so I have a bit of hope that it'll be a more solid project. No word on a solid release date at the moment, but we will share news as it becomes available. In the meantime, now we are in "wait and see" mode between this and Rajini and Shankar's Enthiran sequel, 2.0, which is currently shooting in India and abroad. In the meantime, enjoy Kabali.