The highly awaited Kaala trailer dropped on Monday. While Rajinikanth displays his trademark swagger in abundance, the film is also laced with overarching political themes.
Directed by Pa Ranjith, the Rajinikanth-starrer film is one of the most anticipated releases in Tamil this year. Rajinikanth is said to play a Mumbai-based gangster. Produced by Dhanush’s Wunderbar Films, Kaala also stars Eswari Rao, Huma Qureshi, Nana Patekar, Samuthirakani and Anjali Patil. Ranjith's favourite musician, Santosh Narayanan has once again teamed up with the filmmaker to compose the musical score for the film.
The teaser of Kaala was released on March 2. The near two-minute teaser starts off with veteran star Nana Patekar asking what kind of a name Kaala was, with a voiceover in the next scene saying it means not only the colour black, but also someone who fights and defends. Later, Rajinikanth himself is shown explaining that black is the colour of hard work. The actor is seen speaking in the Tirunelveli slang of the Tamil language.
The audio of Kaala was earlier released by producer Dhanush. The album, packed with eight upbeat and melody songs, has made Rajinikanth fans go gaga. With a mix of different genres, the songs lyrics are politically loaded, too.
The audio, though released online, will be launched formally in the evening by Dhanush's Wunderbar films which is producing the film. On May 1, a single track from the film—Semma weightu—was released. It was an instant hot online and has garnered over three million views.
Like his earlier works like Madras and Kabali, Kaala, too, reflects Pa Ranjith's style as the lyrics talk about caste hegemony. Lines like Pathingi adangi vaazha naanga innum slave ah [Are we still slaves to hide and live in subjugation?], and Ezhayoda vaithula adichi bank balance ah yethatha [Don’t hit the poor and then raise our bank balance], talk volumes about how Kaala will strike down heavily on the ruling class and those in power.
(Inputs from Lakshmi Subramanian)