Is Amitabh Bachchan the viral transgender in Kanchana 2 remake?

Mumbai: Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan may just give his nod to the Indian LGBTQ movement. The superstar who has had a five decade long illustrious filmy career is rumoured to be playing transgender for the first time in the remake of popular Tamil film Kanchana 2.

The original movie released in 2015 and Raghava Lawrence played the lead role as well as directed the movie. However, in the remake, Akshay Kumar will be seen playing Raghava's role opposite Kiara Advani. The film is touted to feature a transgender ghost Laxmi who will possess Kumar. Though it may be his first stint as a transgender, this will be the second time that Big B will play a ghost on the big screen.

In Kanchana 2, Raghava Lawrence character gets possessed by the transgender ghost and take his revenge from his killers. However, a source revealed that in the remake Khiladi star's character will be possessed by one ghost - that of the transgender, Lakshmi - and not three ghosts as seen in the Tamil movie. The original movie Kanchana 2 featured Taapsee Pannu, Nithya Menen and Kovai Sarala. Lawrence directed and starred in the 2011 original Kanchana as well, known as Muni 2: Kanchana. Interestingly the Tamil movie was being remade in Kannada as Kalpana 2 in 2016. 

While it remains yet to be seen if the move will be just another cringe-worthy caricature of a transgender, it will be interesting to see a legendary actor like Amitabh Bachchan takes on the challenge to play transgender in a film. The film will go on floors by the end of this month and the makers are planning to release the film early next year. 

Earlier this year, actor Vijay Sethupathi's Tamil movie Super Deluxe also courted controversy for showing the transgender community in a bad light. Directed by Thiagarajan Kumararaj, the movie showed Sethupathi playing a transgender person named Shilpa. A popular Tamil entertainment website quoted them as saying, "We had good regard for Vijay Sethupathi, but he has spoilt it by acting in this film. He has spoken dialogue about a transgender person kidnapping children. Can anyone recall of such a crime committed by a transgender person? After hearing the script, Vijay Sethupathi should have rejected it."

Female actor Kubbra Sait had recently played a transgender called Kukoo in Sacred Games (2018), the hit web series on Netflix made by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane.