In East Is East‘s greatly anticipated sequel West Is West, Sajid Khan is still a weird, mixed up boy even if he has ditched the Parka.
Despite the uncanny resemblance to actor Jordan Routledge who played the orginal runt of the Khan litter, 17 year old Aqib Khan was most definitely something of a find for producer Leslee Udwin as he deftly picks up where Sajid left off over a decade ago only a few years older and in the throes of a pubescent identity crisis.
West Is West will be Aqib’s début professional performance which comes as something as a shock as the kid has clearly got a lot of talent! HeyUGuys got to hear about the excitement first hand as well as just how he’s been coping in his new-found limelight.
Did you ever consider acting as a possible career before West Is West?
Never, I never thought about it.
Despite the uncanny resemblance to actor Jordan Routledge who played the orginal runt of the Khan litter, 17 year old Aqib Khan was most definitely something of a find for producer Leslee Udwin as he deftly picks up where Sajid left off over a decade ago only a few years older and in the throes of a pubescent identity crisis.
West Is West will be Aqib’s début professional performance which comes as something as a shock as the kid has clearly got a lot of talent! HeyUGuys got to hear about the excitement first hand as well as just how he’s been coping in his new-found limelight.
Did you ever consider acting as a possible career before West Is West?
Never, I never thought about it.
- 2/24/2011
- by Rebecca-Jane Joseph
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
A Bradford teenager who landed the lead in the new East Is East sequel
Who is he?
A Bradford teenager who landed the lead in West Is West, the East Is East sequel, after one of his teachers spotted the character description – cheeky little Asian boy – and told him he'd be perfect. He was the last candidate the producers saw for Sajid, the youngest of the Khan kids.
Wasn't he the little one who never took his parka off in East Is East?
That's him. Hid in the coal shed. West Is West is set a few years later. Now he's an angry teenager, who gets hauled from Salford to Pakistan by his dad to sort him out – he wanders around rural Punjab giving people V-signs.
Why didn't they get the same actor for Sajid?
He's too old. East Is East was set in 1971; this one takes place a few years later,...
Who is he?
A Bradford teenager who landed the lead in West Is West, the East Is East sequel, after one of his teachers spotted the character description – cheeky little Asian boy – and told him he'd be perfect. He was the last candidate the producers saw for Sajid, the youngest of the Khan kids.
Wasn't he the little one who never took his parka off in East Is East?
That's him. Hid in the coal shed. West Is West is set a few years later. Now he's an angry teenager, who gets hauled from Salford to Pakistan by his dad to sort him out – he wanders around rural Punjab giving people V-signs.
Why didn't they get the same actor for Sajid?
He's too old. East Is East was set in 1971; this one takes place a few years later,...
- 1/21/2011
- by Cath Clarke
- The Guardian - Film News
This belated sequel to East Is East provides chuckles but fails to get to grips with the troubles facing British Muslims and Pakistan
It's been more than a decade since the Ayub Khan-Din-scripted East Is East liberated British-Asian cinema from the furrowed-brow earnestness that had largely been its lot. It managed to combine an effervescent cheerfulness with simple but effective points about how ethnic identity changes across successive generations of immigrants. No doubt with one eye on current political debate, this belated sequel looks to develop the theme and provide context to the arguments about immigration.
The first film was set in 1971; this one takes place five years later. Almost all of the principal cast has reassembled: Om Puri is patriarch George Khan, baffled fury personified; Linda Bassett is his English second wife, Ella; Emil Marwa and Jimi Mistry are among his brood of Salford-raised sons (the latter, though,...
It's been more than a decade since the Ayub Khan-Din-scripted East Is East liberated British-Asian cinema from the furrowed-brow earnestness that had largely been its lot. It managed to combine an effervescent cheerfulness with simple but effective points about how ethnic identity changes across successive generations of immigrants. No doubt with one eye on current political debate, this belated sequel looks to develop the theme and provide context to the arguments about immigration.
The first film was set in 1971; this one takes place five years later. Almost all of the principal cast has reassembled: Om Puri is patriarch George Khan, baffled fury personified; Linda Bassett is his English second wife, Ella; Emil Marwa and Jimi Mistry are among his brood of Salford-raised sons (the latter, though,...
- 10/19/2010
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Based on Ayub Khan-Din's semi-autobiographical play, which has been produced with great success in both London and New York, "East Is East" is an alternately touching and amusing tale about a large Pakistani-English family living in 1970s suburban England.
Unlike many movie adaptations, it improves greatly on the original play (Khan-Din himself wrote the screenplay), thanks to the authentic detail provided by the locations and the opening up of what seemed cramped and claustrophobic onstage.
Recalling the great working-class British films of the early 1960s, the film should do decent business this fall for Miramax, or at least better than the recent "My Son the Fanatic", which also starred the great Indian actor, Om Puri. "East Is East" was recently featured at the Montreal World Film Festival.
The story concerns the Khan family, who live in a tiny suburban house containing their fish and chips shop. There are seven siblings, the children of a tyrannical and sometimes abusive Pakistani father, George (Puri) and a long-suffering English mother, Ella (Linda Bassett).
The film centers around the cultural conflict between their environment, England during the sexual revolution, and George's fierce clinging to traditional Pakistani values. The children rebel in various ways: one secretly attends art school; another is romantically involved with a white girl; the oldest son, estranged from his father, is gay.
George's newest plan is to set up an arranged marriage between two of his sons and the daughters of a wealthy Pakistani businessman. Another plot point concerns the youngest child, Sajid (Jordan Routledge), whose unhappiness is reflected in his refusal to stop wearing a ratty and smelly hooded parka. He has reason to be unhappy; at age 12, he's only just been circumcised.
Episodic in nature, the film contains many amusing scenes, the best of which is the chaotic encounter between the Khans and the old world Pakistani family whose daughters turn out to be less than beauty queens; particularly nettlesome to the meeting is a large pornographic sculpture which pops up unexpectedly. There are also many touching moments as well, and when the full force of George's fury is unleashed, the results are emotionally devastating.
Director Damien O'Donnell, making his feature debut, has directed the complicated production with finesse and a sure sense of period detail; he's also elicited sterling performances from the mostly young cast. As the loving but warring couple, Om Puri and Linda Bassett deliver powerful portrayals that clearly demonstrate the hold these two complicated characters have on each other.
EAST IS EAST
Miramax Films
Director: Damien O'Donnell
Screenplay: Ayub Khan-Din
Producer: Leslie Udwin
Director of photography: Brian Tufano
Editor: Michael Parker
Music: Deborah Mollison
Color/stereo
Cast:
George Khan: Om Puri
Ella Khan: Linda Bassett
Sajid Khan: Jordan Routledge
Meenah Khan: Archie Panjabi
Maneer Khan: Emil Marwa
Saleem Khan: Chris Bisson
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Unlike many movie adaptations, it improves greatly on the original play (Khan-Din himself wrote the screenplay), thanks to the authentic detail provided by the locations and the opening up of what seemed cramped and claustrophobic onstage.
Recalling the great working-class British films of the early 1960s, the film should do decent business this fall for Miramax, or at least better than the recent "My Son the Fanatic", which also starred the great Indian actor, Om Puri. "East Is East" was recently featured at the Montreal World Film Festival.
The story concerns the Khan family, who live in a tiny suburban house containing their fish and chips shop. There are seven siblings, the children of a tyrannical and sometimes abusive Pakistani father, George (Puri) and a long-suffering English mother, Ella (Linda Bassett).
The film centers around the cultural conflict between their environment, England during the sexual revolution, and George's fierce clinging to traditional Pakistani values. The children rebel in various ways: one secretly attends art school; another is romantically involved with a white girl; the oldest son, estranged from his father, is gay.
George's newest plan is to set up an arranged marriage between two of his sons and the daughters of a wealthy Pakistani businessman. Another plot point concerns the youngest child, Sajid (Jordan Routledge), whose unhappiness is reflected in his refusal to stop wearing a ratty and smelly hooded parka. He has reason to be unhappy; at age 12, he's only just been circumcised.
Episodic in nature, the film contains many amusing scenes, the best of which is the chaotic encounter between the Khans and the old world Pakistani family whose daughters turn out to be less than beauty queens; particularly nettlesome to the meeting is a large pornographic sculpture which pops up unexpectedly. There are also many touching moments as well, and when the full force of George's fury is unleashed, the results are emotionally devastating.
Director Damien O'Donnell, making his feature debut, has directed the complicated production with finesse and a sure sense of period detail; he's also elicited sterling performances from the mostly young cast. As the loving but warring couple, Om Puri and Linda Bassett deliver powerful portrayals that clearly demonstrate the hold these two complicated characters have on each other.
EAST IS EAST
Miramax Films
Director: Damien O'Donnell
Screenplay: Ayub Khan-Din
Producer: Leslie Udwin
Director of photography: Brian Tufano
Editor: Michael Parker
Music: Deborah Mollison
Color/stereo
Cast:
George Khan: Om Puri
Ella Khan: Linda Bassett
Sajid Khan: Jordan Routledge
Meenah Khan: Archie Panjabi
Maneer Khan: Emil Marwa
Saleem Khan: Chris Bisson
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/7/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
An early front-runner for the Camera D'Or, "East Is East" (Directors Fortnight) is a wonderfully funny and moving directorial debut from Damien O'Donnell. Set in a London suburb in 1971, it stars the marvelous Om Puri and Linda Bassett as the Pakistani-Anglo parents of seven children, six of whom are sons. This Miramax release in the United States was greeted enthusiastically at its initial screening and should win hefty critical support on its way to finding a respectable audience.
O'Donnell garnered awards and many international festival screenings for his short "Thirty Five Aside" a few years back. In "East Is East" he shows fully developed skills in guiding the cast through many subtle and fairly intricate comic situations, parceling out the truly hilarious bits with a keenness that eludes many veterans. Added to this he finds just the right compositions with cinematographer Brian Tufano ("Trainspotting") to keep things interesting.
Based on the play by Ayub Khan-Din, who also wrote the adaptation, "East Is East" has a decidedly intense undercurrent of protracted familial conflict resulting from the siblings and English wife Ella (Bassett) of Pakistani immigrant George (Puri) who resent and finally resist his authoritarian rule over them, particularly his desire to live according to the customs of his native country and the Islamic religion.
A devote Muslim who has run a chip shop for decades with the help of Ella and the now mostly grown-up children, George Khan believes he knows what's best, including arranged, blind marriages for his sons. But in the first few minutes we see his oldest, Nazir (Ian Aspinall), bolt from the altar and "dishonor" the family so deeply he's not allowed to be contacted or talked about as a living person. Typifying the film's adept way of changing tones, his eventual return is a crowd-delighting surprise.
George is a gentle, thoughtful man, but he's blind to the wants and needs of his brood and amusingly tolerates Ella's occasional challenges to his ego. When he discovers that youngest son Sajid (Jordan Routledge) is uncircumcised, he wastes no time in putting the poor lad through an ordeal that gives older sister Meenah (Archie Panjabi) a chance to hilariously tease the victim, while Ella protests George's harsh attitude.
The older sons have more volatile conflicts for the family to endure but are also the source of many humorous subplots. Tariq (Jimi Mistry) is a budding ladies' man who has his first romance with the screechy Mod daughter, Stella (Emma Rydal), of a racist neighbor. Stella's juvenile- delinquent brother (Gary Damer), chubby friend Peggy (Ruth Jones) and Ella's sister Auntie Annie (Lesley Nicol) all have great comic scenes and lines as the other major English characters.
The most self-assured and secretive of the Khans, art student Saleem (Chris Bisson) sculpts a portion of Peggy's anatomy that is tossed around in the wild climax, which features the first meeting between the eligible but unbearably ugly daughters of another "Paki", whom George has chosen as wives for bitterly unaccepting Tariq and agreeably resigned Abdul (Raji James).
Although by the end he has his eyes opened and life for the Khans will never be the same, George grows angry and even violent, lashing out at loved ones as the family veers toward disaster. It's a credit to Puri and Bassett (who created her role in the original stage production) that as George hits his wife and beats up a religiously devout son (Emil Marwa), we understand the ties that bind them all together won't break despite the unpleasantness and uncertain future.
EAST IS EAST
Miramax Films
Assassin Films, FilmFour
Director:Damien O'Donnell
Screenwriter:Ayub Khan-Din
Producer:Leslee Udwin
Director of photography:Brian Tufano
Production designer:Tom Conroy
Editor:Michael Parker
Music:Deborah Mollison
Costume designer:Lorna Marie Mugan
Color/stereo
Cast:
George Khan:Om Puri
Ella:Linda Bassett
Tariq:Jimi Mistry
Abdul:Raji James
Sajid:Jordan Routledge
Auntie Annie:Lesley Nicol
Meenah:Archie Panjabi
Running time -- 116 minutes...
O'Donnell garnered awards and many international festival screenings for his short "Thirty Five Aside" a few years back. In "East Is East" he shows fully developed skills in guiding the cast through many subtle and fairly intricate comic situations, parceling out the truly hilarious bits with a keenness that eludes many veterans. Added to this he finds just the right compositions with cinematographer Brian Tufano ("Trainspotting") to keep things interesting.
Based on the play by Ayub Khan-Din, who also wrote the adaptation, "East Is East" has a decidedly intense undercurrent of protracted familial conflict resulting from the siblings and English wife Ella (Bassett) of Pakistani immigrant George (Puri) who resent and finally resist his authoritarian rule over them, particularly his desire to live according to the customs of his native country and the Islamic religion.
A devote Muslim who has run a chip shop for decades with the help of Ella and the now mostly grown-up children, George Khan believes he knows what's best, including arranged, blind marriages for his sons. But in the first few minutes we see his oldest, Nazir (Ian Aspinall), bolt from the altar and "dishonor" the family so deeply he's not allowed to be contacted or talked about as a living person. Typifying the film's adept way of changing tones, his eventual return is a crowd-delighting surprise.
George is a gentle, thoughtful man, but he's blind to the wants and needs of his brood and amusingly tolerates Ella's occasional challenges to his ego. When he discovers that youngest son Sajid (Jordan Routledge) is uncircumcised, he wastes no time in putting the poor lad through an ordeal that gives older sister Meenah (Archie Panjabi) a chance to hilariously tease the victim, while Ella protests George's harsh attitude.
The older sons have more volatile conflicts for the family to endure but are also the source of many humorous subplots. Tariq (Jimi Mistry) is a budding ladies' man who has his first romance with the screechy Mod daughter, Stella (Emma Rydal), of a racist neighbor. Stella's juvenile- delinquent brother (Gary Damer), chubby friend Peggy (Ruth Jones) and Ella's sister Auntie Annie (Lesley Nicol) all have great comic scenes and lines as the other major English characters.
The most self-assured and secretive of the Khans, art student Saleem (Chris Bisson) sculpts a portion of Peggy's anatomy that is tossed around in the wild climax, which features the first meeting between the eligible but unbearably ugly daughters of another "Paki", whom George has chosen as wives for bitterly unaccepting Tariq and agreeably resigned Abdul (Raji James).
Although by the end he has his eyes opened and life for the Khans will never be the same, George grows angry and even violent, lashing out at loved ones as the family veers toward disaster. It's a credit to Puri and Bassett (who created her role in the original stage production) that as George hits his wife and beats up a religiously devout son (Emil Marwa), we understand the ties that bind them all together won't break despite the unpleasantness and uncertain future.
EAST IS EAST
Miramax Films
Assassin Films, FilmFour
Director:Damien O'Donnell
Screenwriter:Ayub Khan-Din
Producer:Leslee Udwin
Director of photography:Brian Tufano
Production designer:Tom Conroy
Editor:Michael Parker
Music:Deborah Mollison
Costume designer:Lorna Marie Mugan
Color/stereo
Cast:
George Khan:Om Puri
Ella:Linda Bassett
Tariq:Jimi Mistry
Abdul:Raji James
Sajid:Jordan Routledge
Auntie Annie:Lesley Nicol
Meenah:Archie Panjabi
Running time -- 116 minutes...
- 5/17/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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