Dharman director whistled at Rajinikanth on his own monitor

A director is supposed to be the calmest person on his own set. Ashwath Marimuthu lasted one shot. On the first day of filming Dharman, he set up a scene where Rajinikanth steps out of a car and walks into a hospital, watched it play back on the monitor, and, in his words, forgot himself and whistled. “Seeing his style, I couldn’t hold it in,” he said at the Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, where he was speaking about the Rajinikanth film he is directing for Kamal Haasan’s production house.

The whistle was his way of describing a screen presence he clearly did not expect to hit him this hard. “The Rajini of twenty years ago is exactly the same. You can’t tell he has aged at all. On set he is bouncing around, full of energy,” Marimuthu said, reaching for Padayappa as the reference point, the charm and swagger of that era intact decades later. “Watching him perform in front of the camera is a joy. Dharman will have everything fans love about him, the style, the swag, the screen presence. It is going to be a blast.”

He was careful to frame it as pressure as much as privilege. “Dharman is a superstar film, and a Kamal Haasan production, so the responsibility on me is huge. Many directors carry the dream of making a Rajini film. That dream has come true for me,” he said, promising a stylish, polished film pitched at Rajinikanth’s fans and at audiences across the country. The film, which went on the floors a few days ago, has Simran and Raashi Khanna in key roles, with Anirudh Ravichander scoring.

Marimuthu had a second reason to be on stage: his earlier film Dragon took the Best Entertainer prize, handed to him and producer Aishwarya Kalpathi by Kalaipuli S. Thanu. Accepting it, he thanked the audience for backing the film and promised news soon on his projects with Rajinikanth and Silambarasan TR.

On the second of those, he offered a clearer sequence than fans have had so far. His long-awaited STR 51 with Silambarasan will only begin once Dharman is done, and Dharman itself finishes after Silambarasan wraps his current commitment. “STR is busy with Arasan right now,” Marimuthu said, laying out a chain where the Vetrimaaran film clears first, Dharman completes next, and STR 51 rolls after that. The rest of that project’s cast and crew, he indicated, will be named once it actually begins shooting.