Shah Rukh Khan's 'Chennai Express' posters spark debate; much ado about nothing?

New Delhi: Filmmaker Rohit Shetty has teamed up with Shah Rukh Khan for the first time in his career in 'Chennai Express'. The highly successful director is going to present Shah Rukh Khan in a new avatar, at least the initial posters suggest so. Shah Rukh Khan has avoided playing non-North Indian characters in his acting career, but a big turn came with 'RA.One' in which he played Shekhar Subramanium.

Shah Rukh's critics found his character a bit objectionable in 'RA.One' because of Shekhar Subramanium's personality traits. He ate with hands and cracked jokes about the lifestyle followed in South but some of them didn't go well with every section of the audiences. The film amassed good money but a huge budget restricted it from becoming a profitable venture.

Once again Shah Rukh Khan is ready to enthral the viewers with his forthcoming film 'Chennai Express'. One poster of the film features Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone in 'lungi' while another shows wrestler like people in the background. The posters seem a deliberate effort to give a South Indian touch to the name of the film. The responses to the posters are mixed. Some liked the posters for their appeal quotient while some find them 'not so cool'.

People took to Twitter to express their opinion about the posters, Sathya Narayanan tweets, "Both Chennai Express and 2 States (which is directed by Karan Johar) are releasing this year. Can't wait for all the Madrasi stereotypes."

Another twitterati wrote, "Beware of @iamsrk in Chennai Express. We all know what happened the last time he played a South Indian."

Stylish names are a part of popular Twitter trends, one such twitterati called Dhinchak Womaniya wrote, 'Chennai Express' poster tells me it's gonna be full of Tamilian stereotypes, nariyal paani jokes and at least 3 'Enna Rascala'-type dialogues."

Sreedhar Pillai says, "Just saw SRK- Rohit Shetty's Chennai Express posters. Typical Bollywood attitude stereotype absurd images of south Indians."

Some Twitter users expressed their high hopes from the film, Rajeev Dash says, "Chennai express might well be that movie which would SRK give confidence to experimney in other movies."

Another film enthusiast opined, "Now i think srk get right director rohit is superb director n i think chennai express will b too much entertaining."

The film has generated both kind of emotions and it would be interesting to see what kind of reaction sustains till the release of the film. The promoters of the film would be happy to see the film making initial buzz.