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Tamil actor Ajith is shooting his 50th film Mankatha in hotspots across the world

R S Prakash bmfeedback@indiatimes.com

The celebrations have already begun for Ajith’s 50th film. Titled Mankatha, the cast and crew are currently in Bangkok for what they describe as a landmark movie for Thalai, as he is fondly called — and particularly his fans. Joining the party is Telugu actor Nagarjuna, who is said to be playing a key role in the flick.

Blame it on numerological concerns, Mankatha was earlier titled Mangatha. After having overcome some of those initial problems, director Venkat Prabhu and crew are all excited about the film.

Says the ace director, “I admit there were some problems initially, but all is well now and the schedules have started rolling in the right sequence and in the right direction. We as a team are very certain that the film in its final form will wow the audience and the added attraction will be the fact that this is our Thalai’s 50th outing!”

For Venkat, this is a different experience as he has earlier worked with relatively lessknown actors and new-comers in films like Chennai- 6000028, Saroja and Goa. Besides roping in Ajith and Nagarjuna, the film also has Trisha, Manoj Manchu, Ganesh Venkataraman and new comer Mahaat.
So what is cooking? We asked Venkat, the son of director-cummusic-director Gangai Amaran.

“It is a commercial potboiler that is being made on the lines of an action adventure dealing with ‘strategic moves’ of a couple of people who would accept nothing less than a victory in a game of probability while destiny has a surprise in store for them, ” says Venkat, cheerfully.

Thankfully, Venkat has been given a complete go-ahead from his producer Dhayanidhi Azhagiri, the grandson of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi.

“I have told the director to go ahead and shoot the film exactly the way he conceived — regardless of the cost. All the top sequences will be canned abroad,” said Azhagiri.

Expectations have hit the sky for Thalai’s 50 movie, which will be shot around at least 10 top locations.

After Venkat’s film, Ajith will start shooting Billa 2, a sequel to Billa, one of his all-time hits.