Entertainment
‘Maari’ fulfils how I wanted to see Dhanush onscreen: Balaji Mohan
Chennai: Director Balaji Mohan, who consciously chose to go fully commercial with forthcoming Tamil entertainer “Maari”, says the film is a fulfillment of how he has always wanted to see actor Dhanush on screen.
“I’ve been his (Dhanush’s) fan right from his first film. I’ve always liked him as an actor as well as a star. The way he can carry himself in the offbeat as well commercial space is amazing. I’ve really liked him in his commercial avatars and I wanted to see him in a certain way. ‘Maari’, in a way, is a fulfillment of the way I want to see Dhanush onscreen,” Balaji told.
Known for his quirky, partly offbeat films such as “Kadhalil Sodhappuvathu Yeppadi” and “Vaayai Moodi Pesavum”, Balaji is taking a plunge into the commercial stream with the film.
“When you see the trailer of ‘Maari’, you get a clear idea of how the film is going to be. And that’s the kind of film I’ve always wanted to do. It’s a conscious decision to go fully commercial with ‘Maari’ and break the perception audiences have created about me. It’s not something that happened by accident,” he said.
Quizzed if he found making a commercial film with a star challenging, Balaji said: “It’s difficult when you’re sensibilities are not in that space. My first two films belong to the space I created for myself after I started watching lot of international cinema and developed that taste.”
“The sensibility on which ‘Maari’ has been made has always been there inside me. I never felt like traversing into an unknown territory with the film. I felt quite at home working on it,” he added.
In the film, Dhanush is said to be playing a local hooligan, who goes with the catchphrase “Will finish you off”. It features the “Raanjhanaa” star mostly in a dhoti-clad, cigarette-smoking and twirled-moustache avatar.
Balaji said he wrote the film exclusively for Dhanush, and wouldn’t have made the film had he not agreed to be part of it.
He also clarified that “Maari” is much different from Dhanush’s blockbuster “Vella Illa Pattathari”, even though they fall in the commercial bracket.
Working with Dhanush was memorable for Balaji, who admires the freshness that the former brings to his performance in every film.
“He’s a very spontaneous actor and at the same time he thinks a lot. It’s a combination I’ve very rarely seen in actors,” Balaji said.
“He is always preparing on sets, but it isn’t evident to the people around him. It just feels like he comes and performs without any preparation. But I know he’s always thinking about his role, preparing, and that’s why all his performances are always fresh,” he said, and added that Dhanush never wanted to be treated like a star.
The film, which releases in cinemas on Friday, also starts Kajal Aggarwal as Dhanush’s love interest.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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