The wait is finally over. The most awaited Kannada film of the year, Raaj, the Showman is releasing on August 14 both in India and in the US.

Raaj, The Showman is directed by Prem and stars Puneet Raj Kumar and Nisha Kothari, now known as Priyanka Kothari, in the lead.

The film was launched on the April 24 last year which also happens to be Kannada movie icon, Dr Raj Kumar's birthday. Prem promised that the film would be ready by January 2009 but it was later postponed to April 24. But the filmmaker could not release the film on that day as shooting got disrupted when the film's heroine Nisha Kothari met with an accident while shooting for the Hindi film Rann. The audio of Raaj, The Showman was released instead.

Finally the two songs that were pending were picturised in South Africa and Leh, Ladakh.

The most popular song, Hey Paro was picturised on Nisha Kothari and Puneet Raj Kumar with many South African dancers.

"The song will be the major highlight of the film," says director Prem.

There are some other interesting features too in the film like Puneet Raj Kumar dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow (of Pirates of the Caribbean) in a song sequence along with Nisha Kothari. The song was shot in many places in North India including Delhi and Punjab.

"Power Star Puneet has shown a lot of energy in the film. He will be the biggest attraction. Puneet's fans have already started their own publicities like launching websites and putting up vinyl boards in different parts of the state. Director Prem has taken lot of care to meet the expectations of his fans. The entire team has worked hard. We want the almighty and the Kannada film fans to bless us," says the film's producer Sreenivasa Murthy.

"I don't think no other film has created such hype among the Kannada film fans other than "Crazy Star" Ravichandran's Shanthi Kranthi which is made in four languages. People are waiting to see the film," says actor-producer-director S Narayan who is prepared to pay a huge advance to screen this film.

Chandrashekhar, former President of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce and a partner of Bangalore's Veeresha theatre is planning to start advance booking at least a week before the release of the film.