Ajith Kumar and Vijay have acted together exactly once, in Rajavin Paarvaiyile, decades before either became the industry force he is today. Vijay is now consumed by his political career. Ajith has folded motorsport into his life alongside acting. Their fan bases have spent years trading insults on their behalf. None of that stopped Vijay from flying out to London this week to flag off a car race at the Silverstone circuit, where Ajith was competing.

Video of the moment right before the race started is what set social media off. Vijay is seen running up to Ajith, hugging him and planting a kiss, the kind of unguarded warmth that neither actor's public image usually allows for. He travelled to the circuit with Aadhav Arjuna and Trisha among others, but the clip that spread was just the two of them.

Vijay didn't stop at the hug. He reportedly asked someone nearby to click a photo of him holding on to Ajith's racing suit, and later climbed into the race car and posed while Ajith sat in it. Those pictures did the rounds just as fast as the hug video, and for a large chunk of fans on both sides, the reaction was pure sentiment. Years of manufactured rivalry, undone by two people who apparently never bought into it.

Not everyone's convinced, though. A section of Ajith's fans are pointing out that Vijay's fandom has, in the past, gone after Ajith and his wife Shalini in personal and ugly terms, and that Vijay himself has played up the rivalry in his mannerisms on occasion. Watching him embrace Ajith now, after years of taking sides, has left some of them cold rather than moved.

Venkat Prabhu, who has directed both actors across separate projects, weighed in on the reunion without being asked twice. He said he'd have been at Silverstone himself if he could, but a pre-release event for a film his father acted in kept him in Chennai instead. "I've seen Ajith and Vijay together many times," he said, adding that whatever the fan wars look like from outside, the friendship between the two men has always been real. He called the London meeting nothing more than that friendship getting its due.

Neither Ajith nor Vijay has commented directly on the moment or on the criticism from within their own fan circles. For now, the clip stays the story, one more data point in a rivalry that has always run hotter among fans than it ever did between the two men actually being fought over.