DVDs:

	East Is East Om Puri, Linda Bassett Miramax, 2000 average customer review:based on 69 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

East Is East is Damien O'Donnell's directorial debut, and he nails the raucous tone from the opening scene, a church parade where the Pakistani children must do some deft maneuvering to avoid being seen by their Muslim father. At times such as these, the film is a straightforward comedy, and the children milk the cultural differences for every laugh they can. Yet the film takes a more somber turn when Saleem balks at his father's insistence on arranging Saleem's marriage. Puri is magnificent straddling the line between lovable father and brute enemy as he demands that the others obey his will, and his performance can be difficult to watch as he metamorphoses. Sympathies toward the characters shift throughout the film, highlighting the superb acting of the entire cast. Ultimately, though, humor wins out, making East Is East a tremendously fun film. --Jenny Brown

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Compelling Storytelling

With a rare combination of edge, grit, song and dance, heart, obscenity, and hilarity, the director takes this stage play and turns it into an unrelenting examination of the explosive tensions involved in a Pakistani family's assimilation into British society. The performances are all remarkable, and you won't mistake this for something you've seen before even though it has elements of "Bend It Like Beckham."


What you should know about tickletackle, tinsel and traditions!!!

We watched the film "East is East" in our English class and we all liked it very much. It's a film about a Pakistani family in Salford, GB and their religious and cultural problems. George, the strict Muslim father, tyrannizes his children and his English wife, Ella. He wants to force his sons to marry Pakistani women against their will. The father is very aggressive and brutal and often uses violence against his family. The film shows very well the Pakistani traditions, e.g. the marriage at the beginning. The oldest son Nazir wears tinsel to hide his face. When he puts away his tinsel, he recognizes.....

We don't want to say too much! Whatch the film. It's very funny!

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...

This "tragic comedy" by Ayub Khan-Din takes place in 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War. It deals with the conflicts between different cultures and generations by telling the story of the Khans, a Pakistani-English family living near Manchester.
George, a Pakistani, who has married an English woman called Ella, is the head of the family and makes an effort to educate his children in the traditional Pakistani way, which means: according to Muslim principles, including customs like circumcision and arranged marriage. But as the seven teenagers feel rather English than Pakistani, the despotic Muslim doesn't really succeed in doing so.
Although some of the characters have unlovable traits you are forced to sympathise with all of them.
"East is East" gives a comprehensive impression of Pakistani life in Britain, considering both: advantages and problems of an Eastern society in a Western world.
It is worth seeing.

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A Comedy?

While this film doubtlessly gives realistic insight into the culture shock of a traditional Pakistani man struggling to maintain the customs of his homeland in 1970's England---and to force those same customs onto his assimilating family---what I can't understand is how so many people found this movie to be both heartwarming and comedic. At least that's the billing it got when it was recommended to me by friends, and also how I heard it touted years ago by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air. The main character here, George Khan, played by India's prolific Om Puri, is among the least sympathetic figures in all of recent cinema, which would be fine if the feeling was he was being set up to be presented that way, but the impression I got was that we were meant to receive him as more of a misguided soul than an abusive tyrant. He beats his wife, alienates his children by among other things seeking to force arranged marriages onto them, is a bigamist (of sorts) and a total bigot who thinks all Indians are evil and out to get him and other Pakistanis, yet the situations and clues in the background music seem determined to dismiss his antics as humorous. So spousal abuse and overseer-like control of children is funny, then, is it? As I watched this film, all I could think of was good riddance to Mr. Khan's traditions and customs, and long live the tolerance we have here in the west. I found the lives of his children, especially his hairdresser son and English-born wife, to be much more interesting than the self-torturing Khan. East Is East has merit but that comes as a study of cultures in a time and place not long past rather than from its central character, George Khan. Its classification as a comedy puzzles me.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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