S. Shankar

S. Shankar

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Category: Cinema

S. Shankar Profile

  • Name:
  • S. Shankar
  • Other Name:
  • Director Shankar, Shanmugam Shankar
  • Born:
  • August 17, 1963

S. Shankar Biography

S. Shankar is an ace filmmaker associated with Tamil cinema, best known for highly expensive commercial movies. He is also a film producer and screen writer. Most of his movies starring big stars of Indian film industry hold some kind of social message, and most of them have turned to huge blockbusters. His films have been dubbed into many Indian and foreign languages, and have been appreciated by non-Tamil audiences too. He is known for his long-term association with A. R. Rahman, and the songs of Shankar movies filmed beautifully are huge chartbusters always. Two of his films – Jeans and Indian became the official entry to academy awards and were nominated for best foreign film category.

 

Shankar marked his directorial debut with Gentleman in 1993, and his other major blockbusters include – Kadhalan, Indian, Muthalvan, Boys, Jeans, Ethiran, I, Anniyan, Sivaji, Nanban etc. His most recent release 2.0 starring Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar is the most expensive Indian film up-to-date, with a whooping budget of 543 crore Indian rupees. Shankar Shanmugam or S. Shankar credited monomously as Shankar is of the best Indian filmmakers of present times. With huge, lavish and extravagance film sets, big film locations, huge stars and best music – Shankar provides a visual treat to the film viewers and provides maximum entertainment with a strong social message. He has a huge fan following crowd too.

 

Shankar hails from Kumbakonam of Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu. He was born on 17 August 1963. He is married to Easwari Shankar and has three kids. Though he holds a diploma in Mechanical Engineering, acting was his real dream. He used to do theatre before getting into film field and he was accidentally spotted by S. A. Chandrasekhar (actor Vijay’s father) who noticed his talent in producing shows. Though he wanted to become an actor, the filmmaker insisted him to try filmmaking. Initially he worked as an assistant under S. A. Chandrasekhar and Pavithran. Bollywood movie Jai Shiv Shankar starring real life pair, Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia was his first film as an assistant director. In fact he has done a few uncredited screen appearances in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

 

In 1993, he made his directional debut through Gentleman starring Arjun Sarja and Madhoo. This high budget film was a huge hit at box office and the songs composed by A. R. Rahman were huge chartbusters. Rahman was a new face to film industry then. Gentleman marked the successful association of Rahman with Shankar, and Rahman worked with the director for all his movies later. Shanker won the Filmfare Best Director Award and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Director. He went on to make many big projects in Tamil cinema, and all were accepted by audience as well. His films dubbed to Hindi too received warm welcome, while a few of them got remade (Gentleman, Muthalvan etc).

 

He worked with Kamal Hassan for the movie, Indian, which was one of the most expensive Tamil films when it was made. The later also received national award for best actor of the dual role he played in the film. His next outing Jeans starring Aishwarya Rai was praised for wonderful shooting locations for its song sequences, including ‘Atisayam/Ajooba’ song filmed on all 7 great wonders of the world. He produced and directed Muthalvan in 1998. Originally written for Rajinikanth, the movie was later made on Arjun. Shankar also directed its Hindi version titled Nayak starring Anil Kapoor.

 

He has directed many hit films with Rajinikanth and also gave a major break to Vikram through the blockbuster Anniyan in 2005. Its dubbed Hindi version was also well received. Musical hit – Boys marked the Tamil debut of Genelia D'Souza, while his sci-fi thriller 2.0 marks Tamil debut of Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar in an antagonist role. As a film director, he got three Filmfare awards and three nominations. He also received 5 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards in best film/best director categories, and many more honours.

Published: N/A

Updated: December 02, 2018

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