Kamal Haasan heaps praise on Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan, talks about Hindu identity of Raja Raja Cholan

Ponniyin Selvan has been winning the hearts of the audience, celebs and critics ever since it was released on September 30 across the world. Kamal Haasan is the latest from Kollywood to go gaga over the movie directed by Mani Ratnam. He watched the film at an IMAX theatre in Chennai, and interacted with the media for sometime.

Vikram and Karthi were also spotted along with the Ulaganayagan. The Indian 2 star recollected how a few actors, including himself, wanted to be a part of the project ever since they were impressed with Kalki's epic novel which was out in the 1950s.

Kamal also expressed excitement over people of different generations showering praise on the movie, and said that he considers the success of the project as his own victory. He appreciated the whole cast and crew for their humongous efforts, and specially mentioned the performance of Vikram, Karthi and Jayaram.

He also went gaga over the effective war sequences, and said that he is aware of the challenges involved while shooting those scenes. On the ongoing fan war on social media between Tamil and Telugu movie lovers, he pointed out that vested interests are behind it and that true cinephiles have always encouraged good films irrespective of language barriers.

The other day, Ponniyin Selvan courted controversy when filmmaker Vetri Maaran said that king Raja Raja Cholan has been given a Hindu identity in the movie. Twitteratti was divided over their opinion on the Asuran director's comment.

When asked about the same, Kamal said that Hindu religion never existed during Raja Raja Cholan's times and that it was the British who coined the term Hindu for people belonging to different sects. He said, "Those times, Shaivism and Vaishnavism were the prominent religions. We should now be celebrating the movie and its crew for pulling off a film of such a huge scale," he added.