‘Kochadaiyaan' set to come ahead of ‘Rana'

Actor Rajinikanth is all set to play a warrior, saviour and a king in a 3D-animation film ‘Kochadaiyaan', which will precede his ongoing project ‘Raana'.

The film, to be directed by his younger daughter Soundarya Ashwin Rajinikanth, has director K.S. Ravikumar writing the story, screenplay and dialogues. He will also supervise the direction.

An official announcement on the Superstar's next film was made on Thursday, a couple of days after his elder daughter Aishwarya Dhanush's film ‘3' was in news for its ‘Kolaveri' song.

‘Kochadaiyaan' uses high-tech 3D and animation technology as has been in ‘Avatar' and ‘Tin Tin', said an official statement. The film being produced by Eros International and Media one Global Entertainment is scheduled for release in August 2012.

Given that the pre-production work for ‘Raana' has been virtually completed, the actor's decision to finish the animation film before that came as a surprise to many, as the unit, till recently, maintained that Rajini would soon resume shooting for the film.

Director K.S. Ravikumar, also the director of ‘Raana', said: “We have completed just one song for ‘Raana'. All of us felt that ‘Kochadaiyaan' should come ahead of ‘Raana'. Once we complete the 3D film, it will certainly be ‘Raana' next.”

On whether the decision to make an animation film was based on considerations about the actor's health, he said, “Even for this film he will actually perform every scene. It will be inside a hi-tech studio, where we will record it using the motion capturing technique,” Mr. Ravikumar said. Once the actor's body language is captured for every scene, it would be assigned to the animation.

Asked if this was an attempt to revive ‘Sultan the Warrior', an animation project planned by Soundarya a few years ago, Mr. Ravikumar said, “Not at all. This is a completely different subject.” ‘Kochadaiyaan' is one of the names of the Lord Shiva, and the name of a king.