The tamil cinema’s first star or celebrity started off from the 1930s as his first hit tamil movie ‘Haridas’ brought fame to M.K.Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. This was followed by the famous rivalry of MG Ravichandran (also known as MGR) and Sivaji with MGR donning widely accepted do-gooder roles while Sivaji focused on performance oriented subjects. MGR was successfully able to utilize his popularity to jumpstart his political career and served as Tamilnadu’s chief minister continuously for 2 terms.
Rajni and Kamal Hassan followed the
footsteps of MGR and Sivaji in the respective ways and achieved their
intended fame. However, they also started the era of fandom where fans of actors
would clash during the release of movies of both the stars. This peaked during
the late 80s to 90s which also had a huge list of new actors making foray into
field of acting, but 2 of them were able to pull through among the crowd of
actors.
Introduction to late 1990s
Staring in Naalaiya Theerpu, Vijay
made an unimpressive entry to movies under his father’s guidance and direction.
It took him some time to warm up to deliver his first major hits in ‘Poove
Unakkaga’ and ‘Kadhalukku Mariyadhai’. Finishing the decade with super-hits
in ‘Thulladha Manamum Thullum’ and ‘Kushi’, he made quite a name with his dance
numbers.
Mirroring Vijay’s career, Ajith
started his career unimpressively only to find some solid footing with
excellent performance in ‘Aasai’ and ‘Kadhal Kottai’. After a brief lull,
‘Vaalee’ established him as one of the scorching performers to look out for. He
also ended that decade with super-hits in ‘Amarkalam’ and ‘Kandukondain
Kandukondain’ (which is truly one of my favorite movie).
2000 to 2010 – Rise of the Action
Stars
Both the rising stars understood that
they need to convert their next door lover-boy images to action stars.
Ajith started on the journey a touch before Vijay to star in a highly appreciated titular role in ‘Dheena’ which earned him the nickname ‘Thala’. With a slew of movie failures, he seemed to lost interest in acting and focused more in racing F3 competitions. His ‘Varalaru’ earned him a good appreciation for astutely playing the role of dancer in one among his triple roles with remake of Rajni’s ‘Billa’ helping him solidify himself as one of the top heroes with plethora of fans.
Meanwhile, Vijay had quite a smooth
sailing in the early 2000s with many average movies with quite some decent
returns. His ‘Ghilli’ (a remake of Telegu movie ‘Okkadu’) was a chartbuster establishing
him as a premier action hero followed by another remake movie in the highly
successful ‘Pokkiri’. However, luck ran out for him as encountered a slew of
nearly 6 super-flop movies on the trot.
2010 to 2020 – Bigger Hits
The start of the 2010 decade saw the
biggest commercial and critically acclaimed movies in the career for both the
stars.
Ajith rode on the back highly
successfully ‘Mankatha’ movie where he
played a character with grey shades sporting the salt and pepper look for the
first time. It departed from the traditional handsome do-gooder hero movies of
all the actors we had been exposed to and he soon moved to sporting his
original shades in nearly all his movies. His association with Director
Siruthai Siva ran quite deep and long with 4 of movies, the last of which
(Viswasam) running quite successfully.
Vijay experienced quite a similar fate
as his competitor, with him roaring into action with highly acclaimed
‘Thupakki’ stealing the show. He too combined with Director Atlee (liked 'Theri' movie) and Murgadoss
in three of their movies to sustained and reasonable success earning him a huge
mass of fans who also celebrated the singer in him as well.
2020 and Beyond
The last movie of both Vijay (Beast)
and Ajith (Valimai) did not stand up to the expectation of the audience and
performed underwhelmingly. In a industry where you are known by your last movie
or success, both the stars would like to deliver a good movie and there is no better time
than this festive season to belt out a highly successful one.
I along with millions of fans of both
the actors would be rooting for both Vijay’s Varisu and Ajith’s Thunivu to rock
the theatres this Pongal.
P.S: Contrary to expectations I am no
fan of either actor, but just of all the good movies that entertain us.
