Director with unmatched record Shankar losing his Midas touch?
By : BVS Prakash
Update: 2024-07-14 04:12 GMT
With ace Tamil director S Shankar failing to impress with his latest offering ‘Indian 2’, which rode on a water-thin plot and industry bigwigs are raising doubts about his ‘midas touch’. "This kind of discussion happens every Friday and people have this tendency to write off big filmmakers and stars if one of their films fails to impress,” says a veteran producer and adds, “Shankar is the only director in India to have a longest and most successful stint for over 30 years which is unique and unmatched,” he adds. He claims that maybe the plot of Indian 2 didn’t enthrall the audience and has limited reach or didn't match up to new trends. “Maybe, he has to update a bit and study 2k kids' taste, otherwise, his plot selection, big casting, visual spectacle and music sense have been outstanding for decades," he points out.
Of course, Shankar has been rocking Kollywood and Tollywood from early 1990s and delivered biggest hits like ‘Gentleman’, “Premikudu’, ‘Indian’, ’Jeans’, ‘Aparachitudu, ‘Oke Okkadu’ and ‘Robot’ to be hailed as uncrowned king of commercial cinema for three decades. “His versatile talent helped him to handle varied themes like reservation, lovers’ woes, corruption in society, also the responsibility of CM towards his people and so on. No one could match up to his varied themes which were also loaded with richly-mounted songs, star-studded casting, exotic locations and lilting music numbers. His combination with whizkid A R Rahman has resulted in innumerable and everlasting chartbusters,” he points out.
He also invented new looks for Tamil superstars like Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, Vikram and Arjun and others and proved to be star filmmaker. “He is known for his larger-than-life movies and big stars were benefited by his vision and work. However, he now has to focus on ‘content’ since his pleasing visuals are available on varied platforms He rose to dizzy heights with a lot of hard work, expansive vision and understanding of commercial cinema which also delivers a social message,” he explains.
He further adds, "Shankar has attained superstar status with his body of work. Even superstars like Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan and Shah Rukh Khan bounced back into the reckoning after a few dull years and Shankar has the capability to return with a bang."
Of course, Shankar has been rocking Kollywood and Tollywood from early 1990s and delivered biggest hits like ‘Gentleman’, “Premikudu’, ‘Indian’, ’Jeans’, ‘Aparachitudu, ‘Oke Okkadu’ and ‘Robot’ to be hailed as uncrowned king of commercial cinema for three decades. “His versatile talent helped him to handle varied themes like reservation, lovers’ woes, corruption in society, also the responsibility of CM towards his people and so on. No one could match up to his varied themes which were also loaded with richly-mounted songs, star-studded casting, exotic locations and lilting music numbers. His combination with whizkid A R Rahman has resulted in innumerable and everlasting chartbusters,” he points out.
He also invented new looks for Tamil superstars like Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, Vikram and Arjun and others and proved to be star filmmaker. “He is known for his larger-than-life movies and big stars were benefited by his vision and work. However, he now has to focus on ‘content’ since his pleasing visuals are available on varied platforms He rose to dizzy heights with a lot of hard work, expansive vision and understanding of commercial cinema which also delivers a social message,” he explains.
He further adds, "Shankar has attained superstar status with his body of work. Even superstars like Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan and Shah Rukh Khan bounced back into the reckoning after a few dull years and Shankar has the capability to return with a bang."