Chennai (PTI): The exotic locales of foreign shores seem to be beckoning Tamil film directors if recent movie blockbusters are any indication.

Earlier, the practice was to include one or two song sequences shot on foreign locations, industry sources said.

The 2007-Ajit starrer 'Billa', a remake of the 1980 Rajinikanth movie by the same name, was shot extensively in Malaysia. 'Unnale, Unnale', 'Vegam' and the recently released Kamal Hassan movie 'Dasavatharam' are other examples.

"Nearly 35 per cent of the Dasavatharam sequence has been shot abroad," Kamal Haasan said after his film's release for which he hired Hollywood specialists for the make-up and stunt sequences. Well-known ad filmmaker Latha Menon said "shooting in foreign locales has become the trend now."

Ace filmmaker Shankar and his cinematographer Rathinevelu had visited Australia, Vienna, Brazil, Rio De Janeiro and Hanoi to fix a location before starting shooting on 'superstar' Rajinikanth-starrer 'Robot'.

According to industry sources, if they get the desired location, shooting will begin in August.

Films of actors like Surya, Vikram, Vijay and Prasanna are also to be shot abroad.

Vijay is set to fly to Italy for 'Villu' directed by Prabhu Deva. This is the second movie the two have come together after the stupendous success of 'Pokkiri'. Vijay's heroine in the movie is Shreya.

'Kanthaswamy' directed by Susi Ganesan in which Vikram and Shreya play the lead roles is being shot in Mexico.

K V Anand's 'Ayyan' features Surya and Tamanna. That is also being shot abroad, industry sources said.

'Achchamundu, Achchamundu (2008) starring Prasanna and Shreya, is being shot in New Jersey. The 'Futuristic Red one camera' which is a technology that combines both the quality of 35 MM and the ability of digital editing/transfer systems, is being used for filming the sequences, probably the first time in Indian cinema, according to the sources.

This will be the first Tamil film to be 'completely rehearsed' on location before the actual filming and would probably hold the distinction of being the first Tamil film to be done completely in live sound, the sources said.

Most scripts these days demand foreign locations and that is why the shoots are being taken abroad, Latha Menon said.

The fans are not complaining either. They get to watch a slickly-edited packaged film with exotic foreign locales and get their money's worth.

Foreign locales, it appears, emerged as part of a successful formula evolved by script writers to bring novelty to their productions.