Rajnikant to receive Raj Kapoor award on April 30

Thane, Apr 25: Tamil superstar Rajnikant will be presented the Raj Kapoor award for his contribution to cinema here on April 30.

A veteran who has to his credit more than 150 films in Tamil and other languages, Rajnikant, also Padmabhushan awardee, will receive a cash award of Rs 1 lakh on the occasion, a release issued here said.

The state government and Thane Municipal Corporation will also organised the function to present the Marathi film awards that day.

Famous for his own 'superlative' style of acting and action and the popular 'flipping of cigarette before catching it in his mouth', Rajnikant is one of the few South Indian actors who crossed over to Bollywood and there also met with success in movies like 'Andha Kanoon', 'Giraftaar', 'Chalbaaz' and 'Gangwa'.

The actor recently had phenomenal success with films like 'Bhasha', 'Muthu', 'Arunachalam' and 'Padayappa'.

Rajni, as he is popularly known as, started his career as a bus conductor, but later learnt the finer nuances of cinema at Madras Film Institute and made his debut on the silver screen with K Balachander's 'Sangama'. Since then, there was no looking back for him and he is now a rage among his fans, especially the Tamilians, who treat him as next to God, the release said.

His latest film 'Padayappa' has also found a Japanese distributor for its screening in Japan.

The German and Turkish version of his movie 'Chandramukhi' will soon be screened in Germany, Turkey, Austria and Switzerland.

UNI