A Star's rise to Stardom 

The period from 1990 to 2001 Super Star Rajinikanth established himself as a commercial entertainer and Rajinikanth became a house hold name in Tamilnadu.Most films released during this period were highly successful at the box office. The decade saw him enter with Panakkaran. He also continued to do more films in Bollywoood as he went on to star in Hindi films. The Hindi film Hum was released in 1991 in which he was cast along with Amitabh Bachchan with the second lead role. Super Star Rajinikanth went on to work with director Mani Ratnam in the film Thalapathi along with co-star Mammooty. This film was a story based on the great Epic Mahabharata where it spoke about the freindship between two uknown people. The movie was a great success and was remade in many Indian Languages. His next film Annamalai was released in 1992 which was followed with Mannan. In 1993 Super Star Rajinikanth wrote his first screenplay for the film Valli in which he also made a special appearance. More films poured in namely Yejamaan, Veera in 1994 and in the year 1995 the blockbuster Baasha was released which emerged as a record for the industry. This film elevated him from being just another very popular actor to nearly a demigod status among the masses. The same year, he acted in yet another gangster film, Aatank Hi Aatank with Aamir Khan which is also his last Hindi film in a major role till date. The Super Star's Muthu was another great commercial success and became the first Tamil film to be dubbed into Japanese, as Mutu: Odoru Maharaja. 
The film Muthu grossed a record US$1.6 million in Japan in 1998 and was responsible for creating a large Japanese fan-base for the actor. Muthu's success in Japan made American news magazine Newsweek to comment in a 1999 article that Rajinikanth had replaced Leonardo DiCaprio as Japan's trendiest heartthrob. Rajinikanth also entered Bengali cinema through the film Bhagya Debata