Rajinikanth showered screenwriter-director K Bhagyaraj with effusive praise at a recent event celebrating his birthday and his 50-year journey in the film industry. The superstar said that Bhagyaraj ranks right up there with Salim-Javed as the best screenwriter in India. He said that unlike Salim-Javed, whose stories are more male-oriented, Bhagyaraj’s films revolve around powerful female characters. Rajinikanth substantiated his point by referring to the treatment of Urvashi's character in Mundhanai Mudichu. He mentioned how the character took a bold stance about motherhood, highlighting it as a prime example of Bhagyaraj’s female-oriented screenwriting. He also cited Andha 7 Naatkal and Thooral Ninnu Pochu as the examples.
For Rajinikanth, the 1970s saw the emergence of three prominent personalities in Tamil cinema, each with similar-sounding names: Bharathiraja, Ilaiyaraaja, and Bhagyaraj. Subsequently, he praised the multifaceted quality of Bhagyaraj, of him being a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, and composer.
Rajinikanth also spoke about Bhagyaraj’s creative inputs that he said made a big impact in the outcome of Baba and Padayappa’s screenplays. Praising the screenwriter’s ability to anticipate audience responses, the superstar said that it was Bhagyaraj’s suggestion to make Ramya Krishnan’s Neelambari character in Padayappa more prominent. Likewise, the actor revealed that the screenwriter suggested adding maximum commercial elements in Baba’s screenplay during their conversations about it instead of those ideas in line with his spiritual ideologies. Suresh Krissna’s film, starring Rajinikanth, did not perform well at the box office, and it does have many spiritual and religious ideas. “No matter what he says, it would turn out to be true,” Rajinikanth said about Bhagyaraj.
