Indian message boards are alight with Rajinikanth jokes, the equivalent of Chuck Norris jokes. (“Rajinikanth was bitten by a cobra. After four days of intense suffering, the snake died.”) Onscreen, when Rajinikanth points his finger, it’s accompanied by the sound of a whip cracking. When he becomes enraged, the director cuts to a shot of a gorilla pounding his chest or inserts a tiger roaring on the soundtrack. Echo is added to enhance his “punch dialogues,” rhyming lines uttered at moments of high drama. “When I will arrive, or how I will arrive, nobody will know, but I will arrive when I ought to,” he snarls, confusingly. Or, “I will do what I say. I will also do what I don’t say.” Then he punches some goon so hard that he flies through the windshield of a minivan and continues on out the back window. Can’t argue with that.
