Unfortunately East Is East isn't on the air any time soon.
Programme Information
It's 1971, and George Khan (Om Puri) is the father of seven rather individual kids. George is desperate for his family to live the traditional life of a Pakistani family. He is fighting a losing battle though, as his children want to live there own lives their ways!
The eldest Khan son, Nazir (Ian Aspinall) shames his father as he walks out of his own arranged marriage, just minutes before he is meant to do the deed. After this as far as George is concerned, his eldest son is now dead.
Meenah is a proper tomboy, who is far more interested in playing and watching football, than dressing up in saris. She breaks all the conventional aspirations of any Pakistani girl. Saleem also breaks free from convention as he studies art, rather than engineering, which is what George, thinks he is studding.
Tariq is the local heartthrob who has the well-known reputation of being a real Casanova! He even gets together with Stella (Emma Rydal) the peroxide blond from across the street. Sajid is the youngest of the seven, who hasn't even been circumcised yet. He still makes a run for it with Meenah, when a van comes to take the Khan kids to the local, makeshift mosque for their Arabic lesson.
The Khan kids are the only ones not dressed in traditional clothes, instead they are dressed in jeans and T-shirts, with the exception of Maneer, the only religious one, the are all hugely bored as well.
With one disastrous arranged marriage already in the past, George is determined to see the next two sons brought in line and married off. Sadly though he wants them to marry the daughters of Mr Shah, a master butcher from Bradford. Both sons however have minds of their own and take on there own futures.
Being very funny, and having a very interesting storyline, this film is a good one to watch, the issues run much deeper than you expect making "East is East" a fascinating view into the lives of another culture.
Film
(1999) (UK) 
(3 Star)
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