Lal Salaam starring Rajinikanth in an extended special appearance, is a Tamil movie directed by the Superstar's daughter Aishwarya Rajinikanth. The movie starring Vishnu Vishal and Vikranth in the lead is all set for a worldwide release on February 9, 2023. Lal Salaam teasers and trailer released so far indicates that the movie is a cricket-based drama that is set around the call for religious harmony.
And the team that has worked on Lal Salaam has dwelled more into the film during their various promotional campaigns. At the Lal Salaam audio launch it was revealed that the is based on a 40+ year old real life incident that involved the burning of a Hindu temple chariot (also known as a temple car). Lal Salaam has story, dialogues and cinematography by Vishnu Rangasamy who comes from Tamil journalism background. The temple car burning incident took place in his hometown and he developed a script based on it and another incident that happened in cricket.
Vishnu Rangasamy was the cinematographer of Aishwarya Rajinikanth's comeback in 2022, when she directed a music video titled Payani. At this time, he pitched the script to her and together they started looking for producers to back their film that they had planned at a budget of Rs. 7 Cr. then. Vishnu Rangasamy describes this saying, "The story is a serious one based on temple chariot arson and is based on ideologies. To choose that story first needs lots of guts. That was there in her (Aishwarya Rajinikanth). She is quite the rebel like that."
Director Aishwarya Rajinikanth has said that since the story is based on religion, in particular highlights the mindless divide between Hindus and Muslims, no one wanted to take the risk of being associated with it - be it doing the movie or producing it. Crediting her father Rajinikanth for changing the trajectory of her mid-sized movie, Aishwarya said,
"He (Rajinikanth) saw the showreel of Lal Salaam and asked why shouldn't I do this (Moideen Bhai's) character. I didn't know what to tell...Because his name (or repute) is something that he has earned on his own. I had no right to play with it even as a daughter..I didn't go and ask my father for dates. He liked the script so he did the film. After that the script itself started bringing in everyone like AR Rahman who is a very big legend. a giant like Lyca Productions came in..That is how the movie started"
Besides religious harmony, Lal Salaam highlights several socially relevant subjects that are the need of the hour. Rajinikanth who plays a Mumbai-based Muslim character named Moideen Bhai has said, "The Lal in Lal Salaam stands for Red. Red is associated with many things - communism, danger, violence, revolution. Aishwarya has identified Red as revolution in this movie. Salaam means salute. So Lal Salaam is a salute to revolution."
The Superstar continued, "The story of Lal Salaam is such. It is a revolutionary story". Rajinikanth is known not to do movies with family members, and he has said that he did Kochadaiiyaan (2014) with his other daughter Soundarya just because it was a motion capture film and that he needed something to keep him occupied to recover from his health scare at that time. Despite this he volunteered to do Lal Salaam. He states the reason as such,
"When I heard the story of Lal Salaam I wasn't surprised because I know about Aishwarya...I told the story to GMK Tamil Kumaran (currently with Lyca Productions) and since he is a politician (from the PMK Party), he knows the field and pulse of the people. Tamil Kumaran found the story impressive and told Subaskaran (head of Lyca Productions). Subaskaran found the story extremely bold and came on to produce it for Aishwarya.
At that time, I was not in Lal Salaam...I had told Aishwarya that for the character of Moideen Bhai she would either require a big star, or someone fresh and majestic like how (director) Nelson casted for the Varma character in Jailer (2023) and made him perform...After 10-15 days, I told Aishwarya I'll do the character.
Lal Salaam will speak about 4 things. One is how a strong impression on a kid while growing up can scar them for life. Which is why we say we should be careful about how we talk and behave in front of kids. Second thing is friendship..As I've already said this before choosing the right friend is way more important than choosing your life partner. If you want to do good in life, having good friends is very very important.
And most importantly Lal Salaam talks about religious harmony. Religions were formed for humans to know God, understand God and to live a happy, contended life...What's happening these days is some people are like 'we are only big, they are not big'..Ramakrishna Paramahansa has said that only religions that have justice, honesty and fairness will prevail..We can keep travelling in our own paths. There is no need to throw stones or sand in the other's path.. "