Vijay Sethupathi: Oldest wine in a new bottle

At 45 years of age, it is a launch which can surely be considered an achievement. Yet, this is what Vijay Sethupathi, 'Makkal Selvan' to legions of fans across the Vindhyas in all its film industries is about to usher in into his 12-year film career, which is studded with 50+ films in three languages – Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.

Why should age matter when pedigree speaks for itself can be a very legitimate question. Yet, when the 20-somethings make it a point to be blooded as heroes and aspire to cruise on the fickle waves of stardom to establish their presence, it becomes pertinent to mention this point.

After the first wave of southern film heroes beginning with Kamal Haasan and ending with Mohanlal entered Mumbai filmdom with their hit remakes between 1981- 2002, the second wave began in 2008 and is still on 15 years later. Based on their box-office standings and appeal, it seems the new gen has broken the shackles on every count which sort of inhibited the progress of the earlier lot. The most important one being the age factor.

Telugu film A-lister Prabhas entered Bollywood with 'Saaho' in 2019, when he was all of 40. He has had one more release in Hindi after that and is working in three films under production as of present. Naga Chaitanya was seen in the box-office dud 'Laal Singh Chadda' last year when he was 36. In comparison, his famous father Nagarjuna made his debut with his remade hit 'Shiva' in 1990 when he was 31. Kamal Haasan was a Hindi film hero when he was 27 and Rajinikanth wowed his fans with the 1983 release 'Andhaa Kaanoon' when he was just 33. To add two more examples, 'Victory' Venkatesh when he was featured as 'Anari' was just 32 and Chiranjeevi made a successful start with 'Pratibandh' at the age of 35.

For fans who think the big screen is the real thing as it is the feeder for all other small screen formats of entertainment like satellite TV channels and OTT platforms, Vijay Sethupathi will be greeting them from theatres near their homes in June , when he will share screen space with Shah Rukh Khan in the Attlee-directed flick 'Jawan'. Or, if release schedules materialize, the delayed movie ' Mumbaikar', a remake of Lokesh Kanagaraj Tamil film ' Maanagaram' may get released earlier.

For the present, the new gen masala content patrons will have enough to drool over as Sethupathi's scintillating acting skills are expected to be unleashed in full flow as he combats the anti-hero type Shahid Kapoor in 'Farzi'.

This eight-episode crime drama web series, to be streamed on Amazon Prime Video from today has quite clearly raised expectations all over the world where Hindi entertainment content is consumed avidly. Morphing into an OTT presentation five years later after it was originally conceived as a feature film in 2014, this presentation by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK boasts of an impressive array of stars – Shahid Kapoor, Raashi Khanna, Kay Kay Menon, Amol Palekar, Regina Cassandra and the veteran debutante from Chennai.