My condolences to Murali's family and fans. Murali was a good actor especially when the director worked on him, e.g. in Desiya Geetham, Atharmam,Puthu Vasantham. Like Ajith, Murali's voice was his biggest drawback, especially when he put on the mantle of the action hero, e.g. Iraniyan.But unlike Ajith and a host of "Tamil" actors, this guy could speak Thamizh correctly.

Murali (along with Rajini and Vijyaknath) proved that a black/dark skinned actor can be as successful as any light skinned one. One of the admirable things about Tamizh movie fans, in addition to the fact that they are not insular(Murali was by birth a Kannadiga), is that they traditionally have not bothered with how an actor looks to accept him as an hero (Wish I could say the same about their attitude towards actresses too). This often becomes a problem when these movies compete with the ones from Mumbai, as Sivaji and his fans discovered to their chagrin post Muthal Mariyathai. The committee consisting of Jaya Badhuri and others decided not to honour the National Award by giving it to the Icon on the grounds that the man, playing the middle aged village head, was too fat.(Refer Parantha Pona Pakkangal, Komal Swaminathan's autobiography. Komal himself was on the committee that year.) This is enough reason I suppose to justify the anti-Hindi/Central feelings in Thamizhs.

Post Murali, only Rajini, Vijaykanth, Parthiban and Vishal are the remaining dark heroes in Thamizh movie industry. In a society which subtly and bluntly derides and ridicules the black skin (for reasons ranging from caste,race, to plain colonial ass-licking), these men have worked against odds to become popular and successful. But their numbers are dwindling alarmingly. With increased mixing of the distinct cultures of India, we see a shift towards non-regional features storming into regional identities and atttitudes. This is just a part of a wider pheneomena of the constant attack of the "Super-cultures" on the "Sub-cultures". Non-local and global markets further add to the disappearance of regional features even in a relatively democratic medium like cinema. When the intended audience is the NRI and her cohorts in US and Europe, all relevance to, and connection with, the local populations is lost.