Earlier this week, several top filmmakers from the Tamil film industry celebrated reputed director Shankar’s 25th year in cinema. The blockbuster director is still riding the high wave after the blockbuster success of last year’s sci-fi action blockbuster, 2.0, starring ‘Superstar’ Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar in the lead roles, which went on to become the highest-grossing film in Tamil cinema.

Meanwhile, Shankar also has more reason to celebrate as 2019 also marks 20 years since his much acclaimed critical and commercial blockbuster, Mudhalvan, came out in theatres. Starring Arjun, Manisha Koirala and Raghuvaran in the lead roles, the action political drama revolves around how a cameraman in a TV channel turns host for an interview with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. In the story, he becomes the CM for a day and goes on to make radical changes while subsequently winning the hearts of the people after which he decides to actively enter politics.

It must be noted Mudhalvan also was remade by Shankar in Hindi under the title Nayak with Anil Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee and Amrish Puri portrayed the roles played by Arjun, Manisha Koirala and Raghuvaran in the Tamil version. 

Having said that, a situation that forms the crux of Mudhalvan has now become a reality after Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky from Ukraine contested in the Ukrainian Presidential elections. He went on to be declared as the next President-elect after defeating the incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, who secured only 24.5% of the vote bank in comparison to Zelensky’s 73.2% with many already saying the election results would lead to a big change in Ukraine’s relationship with Russia.

The biggest and most interesting factor about Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky becoming the next President is that he is an actor who starred in a television comedy series - Servant of the People - in which he spoke out against the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture’s decision to ban Russian artists and their work from Ukraine. In the show, he played a mid-thirties high-school history teacher, who goes on to become the Ukrainian President after a rant against corrupt politicians.

Meanwhile, the losing candidate Poroshenko has issued a warning to the Ukrainian people that Zelensky's victory is only going to work in Russia's favour and would eventually go on to become a part of the superpower nation as she was a couple of decades back with the USSR. Check out his tweet about Zelensky below: