Jai Bhim beats The Shawshank Redemption on IMDb with user rating of 9.6

Actor Suriya’s latest Tamil film Jai Bhim (2021), which was released directly on Amazon Prime Video on 2 November, has achieved a rare feat on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). The film, directed by TJ Gnanavel, has beaten Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption (1994), which has been the top-rated movie for many years with a user rating of 9.6.

The Shawshank Redemption has been pushed to the second position with a rating of 9.3 while Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) is in third position with a rating of 9.2.

Actor R Madhavan took to Twitter over the weekend to say Jai Bhim deserves the top rating. He congratulated the entire team.

However, it must be noted that The Shawshank Redemption has had more than 2.5 million users voting for it so far while Jai Bhim has got about 92,000.

Jai Bhim shines the spotlight on the innocent and hardworking lives of an oppressed scheduled tribe whose members, even with no land to call their own nor a strong roof over their heads, find joy in simple things in life but who are often at the receiving end of police high-handedness and brutality.

The film also stars Prakash Raj, Rao Ramesh, Rajisha Vijayan and Lijomol Jose.  

Talking about being part of the movie and producing it on his own, Suriya had said that he was proud to present this story of “courage and faith in pursuit of justice”. The film features the actor in the role of a lawyer fighting for victims of human rights violations.

Jai Bhim is the second direct-to-OTT release for Suriya after Soorarai Pottru (2020). It was also his third production venture after Raame Aandalum Raavane Aandalum (2021) and Udanpirappe (2021) to take the digital release route.

Last weekend, a section of the audience took offence to a particular scene in the movie in which a calendar shot features a communal symbol. To not hurt the sentiments of people; the makers replaced the communal symbol with a picture of the goddess Lakshmi. The makers conveyed this through a statement.