EAST IS EAST

Year: 1999
USA: Miramax Films
UK: FilmFour
Cast: Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jordan Routledge, Archie Panjabi, Emil Marwa, Chris Bisson, Jimi Mistry, Raji James, Ian Aspinall, Lesley Nicol, Gary Damer, John Bardon, Emma Rydal, Ruth Jones
Director: Damien O'Donnell
Country: UK
UK: 96 mins
USA Rated: R for language, sexual content and some domestic violence
UK Certificate: 15 for strong language, violence and sexual references
USA Release Date: 14 April 2000 (Limited Release - Los Angeles and New York)
UK Release Date: 5 November 1999

Synopsis

George Khan, proud Pakistani and chip shop owner ? ?Ghengis? to his kids ? rules his family with a rod of iron. He thinks he?s raising his seven children to be respectable Pakistanis. But this is Salford in the North of England, in 1971.

Tomboy Meenah prefers playing footie to wearing a sari, hippie Saleem pretends to be studying engineering when he?s really at art school, heart-throb Tariq has got a reputation as a local Casanova, and Sajid hasn?t even been circumcised yet. For George Khan life is an uphill battle to get his family to conform to traditional Pakistani values. With one disastrous arranged marriage already in the family ? Nazir fled at the altar to become a milliner in Eccles ? George plots to bring his next two sons into line by marrying them off to the daughters of Mr Shah, Master Butcher and proud owner of an extended home in Bradford.

Much as George?s Lancashire born wife, Ella, loves and tries to honour her husband, she also wants her kids to be happy. The children, caught between bell-bottoms and arranged marriages, simply want to be citizens of the modern world. East is East is the often hilarious and sometimes painful story of what happens when two cultures collide within one family.