In 1991, the film industry was rocked by ‘Shanti Kranti’, a bold multilingual project that saw Rajinikanth and Nagarjuna portraying the same character in different language versions. This high-stakes crime drama, which boasted a generous budget and an impressive cast including Juhi Chawla and Khushboo, unfortunately did not resonate with audiences and became a disaster at the box office.
In 1991, two major South Indian stars – Akkineni Nagarjuna and Rajinikanth – surprisingly played the same role in different language versions of the same film. The film was ‘Shanti Kranti’, a big budget crime-action drama film made simultaneously in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam. V. Ravichandran wrote, directed and produced the ambitious project. He played the lead role in the Kannada version while handing over the same role to Nagarjuna in Telugu and to Rajinikanth in Tamil and Hindi. The film is available for streaming on Prime Video and also on YouTube.
An ambitious multilingual project
Shanti Kranti was one of the most expensive South Indian films of its time. Ravichandran wanted to tell a story about children and the organ transplant mafia.As reported by OTT Play, he has constructed massive sets, including a re-creation of MG Road in Bengaluru for the climax.
Separate crews, cars and catering teams were arranged for each language version.
What S revealed Narayan
Actor and director S. Narayan later spoke in an interview about the scale of the project. As quoted by OTT Play, he said, “If Shanti Kranti had succeeded at the box office, our industry would have been in a different place.”He added details about the grand arrangements: “The crew members will wear tags like ‘Shanti Kranti, Kannada, Manager’ and the catering team will wear gloves like in a star hotel.
“You wouldn’t have seen an arrangement like that.”
Nagarjuna and Rajinikanth played the same role
In the Kannada version, V. Ravichandran played the role of Inspector Subhash. Nagarjuna took up the same role in Telugu while Rajinikanth wrote it in Tamil and Hindi.Juhi Chawla, Khushboo and Anant Nag have appeared in all the editions. Rajinikanth initially rejected the offer but agreed after hearing the full story from Ravichandran.
Box office failure and personal setback
Despite huge efforts and a huge budget, Shanti Kranti failed to recover its cost at the box office.
The film’s commercial failure came at a difficult time for Ravichandran.His father was legendary producer N. Veeraswami was bedridden and the family was facing financial problems. It was not possible to translate the grand vision of the project into success.
Nagarjuna and Rajinikanth reunited after many years
Nagarjuna and Rajinikanth would not share screen space again for decades. They finally come together after years in the recently released movie “Coolie.” In the Lokesh Kanagaraj directorial, Nagarjuna played the villainous character opposite Rajinikanth.
