/> The never-say-die Ram Gopal Varma is not about to give up that easily. Barely a week after the debacle of Suriya's Hindi launch Rakht Charitra the indefatigable Ramu has already decided to go ahead with another film as a proper launch for the Southern superstar in Hindi, this time a more conventional romantic-action drama.

The blame game has begun. Apparently the people behind Rakht Charitra2 (RC2) feel the Southern sensation Suriya didn't give the film that promotional pitch it required either in Mumbai or in Chennai with the result that RC2 has bombed in both Hindi and Suriya's home-language Tamil.

The soft-spoken Suriya defends himself manfully. "Over here (in Tamil cinema) we don't really go all-out to promote and market our films the way they do in Bollywood. You could say our marketing is more subtle.

I don't go out and sell any of my films to the audience. However for Rakht Charitra I did make an effort to do more publicity than I usually do. Earlier this week RGV (director Ram Gopal Varma) and I flew to Madurai to meet the audience and fans.This is something I haven't done before."

How does Suriya explain RC2's under-performance at the boxoffice in both Hindi and Tamil?

Says Suriya, "Rakht Charitra was never meant to be a film for all tastes. Its intense violent theme was always a deterrent to a mass audience. Even my most violent films have a family base in the plot or there's a love story behind the violence. In Rakht Charitra there was no digression from the intense theme....all in all, no regrets. I'd love to do another film with RGV."

Suriya is still recovering from the back injury that prevented him from being in Mumbai during the promotion of the Hindi Rakht Charitra.

Says Suriya, "The doctors have asked me to take it easy. So we're shooting scenes. We'll shoot the action in the climax after a month."