Talk about the Cholas has been running wild as the movie Ponniyin Selvan is all set to release on September 30th. The movie revolves around the Chola empire and mostly about Ponniyin Selvan, also known as Raja Raja Chozhan or Arunmozhi Varman. Ponniyin Selvan is originally a Tamil novel based on the life of Raja Raja Chola, written by Kalki. While there have been several attempts in the past to make it a film, Mani Ratnam has now started this project, which will be released in two parts. Starring Vikram, Jayam Ravi, Trisha, Aishwarya Rai, Aishwarya Lekshmi and Sarathkumar in lead roles, this is considered Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus. Jayam Ravi is said to play Arun Mozhi Varman, while Trisha plays his sister Kundavai. Karthi will be seen as Vanthiya Thevan, while Aishwarya Rai will be Nandini. Jayaram, Prakash Raj, Lal and Kishore will be playing prominent roles.

The movie is being promoted by the team by all means as they travelled to Trivandrum, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai consecutively to meet their fans. In one such press meeting, Vikram spoke about the greatness of the Chola empire and their architecture for almost 5 minutes continuously in English. Aishwarya Rai then opened up about her daughter Aaradhya’s favourite time on the sets. Aishwarya said that her daughter was mesmerized when she got the opportunity to visit the sets. She further added that Aaradhya has already imbibed the admiration Aish has for Ratnam. “She respects him and she is in awe of him. And his affection is so sweet. And what excited her the most was when one day she came on set and he gave her the opportunity to say action. She couldn’t get over it. She’s like ‘Sir gave me the opportunity to say that!’ And we were like none of has got the opportunity either so that is the most cherished memory and really precious. She already values it and I think with growing years more so, it will be a much-cherished memory,” said the actress.

The Audio and Trailer launch of the film happened in a grand manner on September 6th at Nehru Indoor Stadium. All the cast members including Aishwarya Rai and Vikram made an appearance at the event. Actors Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan graced the event with their presence and launched the trailer live. Several other stars including Directors Shankar and Gautam Vasudev Menon, and Music composers Yuvan Shankar Raaja and Santosh Narayanan were also present. Trisha and Aishwarya Rai went on stage to address the audience. Trisha shared that working with Mani Ratnam is an unforgettable experience, and also thanked the director for giving her the role of Kundavai. She then said that she can keep seeing and watching Rajini and Kamal and that nobody can ever get bored of them. Aishwarya Rai, who was also on stage, said, “Mani Ratnam is my Guru. My film journey started with his Directorial ‘Iruvar’. I have already acted with Rajini. However, I have still not acted with Kamal Haasan. But, I have learnt a lot from both the actors.” She then requested them to continue acting for longer, so that we can always keep watching them.

The film is to be released in 2 parts, and the first part is releasing on September 30th. The final work of the film is currently going on, and the director has reportedly made a final copy of the film. The runtime of the film is apparently 2 hours and 50 minutes or 170 minutes, which is less than several large-scale movies. Probably, Mani Ratnam went for a short and sweet first half, in order to hook the audience with a longer and more detailed second part.