Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious, but very serious
Review: Another example of great British film. In 1971 a mixed Bangladeshi-English family lives in Manchester, UK. The Bangladeshi father is a respected member of the community, but still clings to his Bangladeshi heritage. He does not see that his children are totally assimilated. While loving and respecting their father, they are also full English. The complications are absolutely hilarious. The father tries desperately to bring his children back into the Bangladeshi community, but everything goes wrong for him. His oldest son proves to be gay, his younger sons have English girlfriends. One of them is creating erotic art. The crisis point for the father comes when even the son who is a devout muslim turns against him. Only then is he forced to accept the new reality of his children. (...)
Rating: 
Summary: comedy-drama about the clash of cultures on a barebones dvd
Review: George Khan (Om Puri) and his British wife (Linda Bassett) are raising their family in Manchester, England, in 1971, and George is not happy with the way his children are adapting to their English homeland. He wants them to be traditional Pakistanis, though the kids have other ideas. As you'd imagine, this creates many humorous situations. The direction and sets are very good and the cast is superb. It's absolutely hysterical to see the red-headed, chain-smoking British Bassett as she shepherds her very unBritish-looking brood. But the film takes an unexpected and darker turn as George becomes more enraged at his family's disobedience and ultimately reacts with violence. While his transformation is believable, there is never really a resolution to the tension, so I would recommend this film, but if you are wanting a flat-out comedy or a film that tries to answer the question of how to resolve multicultural conflicts, this would not meet the bill.This is a barebones dvd, with an option for English captioning and a trailer.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Delightful
Review: 'East is East' is a delicious comedy with a heart!!! Om Puri and Linda Bassett are both wonderful as husband and wife living in multicultural Britain, and O'Donnell's fascinating directorial debut is a truly delightful, yet serious, cinematic work.
Rating:
Summary: One of those gems you've never heard of ...
Review: If you happen to catch the trailer on another Miramax release, you might order the movie on the off chance that it'll turn out to be a quirky enjoyable comedy - I did, and it is. However, the movie is MUCH more than what is portrayed in the trailer, and in my opinion deserves better exposure than it got. It is a true comedy, but it tackles the very serious issues faced by multi-cultural and immigrant families, accurately portraying the conflicts between family, tradition, and society at large. A movie that can be appreciated by anyone, it is certain to strike a special chord in the hearts of those whose traditions and values differ from those of the country they have chosen to call home.
Rating:
Summary: A Funny, Yet Serious Film
Review: Much of the publicity surrounding this film rested on its comedy elements. And yet this is only half the story. The humour is terrific - ranging from coarse humour and cheap laughs to subtle jokes about dialect and the period on which the film is set. But the rest of the film is a mature, post-colonial take on the topics of immigration, integration, and miscgenation. The humour in this film is great. The lovely Archie Punjabi and the boys supply most of this, while their parents deal in more serious matters. Om Puri convinces despite being a bit of a stereotyped Pakistani Dad, and the whole film glides along at a cracking pace, thanks to the humour. Despite dealing with serious subjects such as spousal abuse and cultural identity, the humour prevents any dragging. Mr Khan has lived in England for 25 years, and this is significant because 1946 is the year before Indian independence, and a time when many Indians and Pakistanis came to Britain. The second great influx of Asians came in the late 1960s with the independence of Uganda and Kenya and their respective new governments repatriating the Asian communities. These latter immigrants would have formed the lion's share of the Asian Communities in Salford and Bradford, and for this reason Mr Khan is out of place with the recent immigrants (all of whom have more knowledge of Pakistan - formed after his departure from India - than he) just as he has not entirely settled in England (he still only speaks pidgin English, despite being there 25 years). Despite being entrenched in his ways and violent to his family, you can't help but have sympathy for this fish out of water and hope that he comes to terms with life in Britain soon. I recommend this to anyone interested in the Anglo-Asian Community, but also to anyone who likes a good laugh.
Rating:
Summary: lots of fun
Review: A goofy comedy with some serious moments; not that I'm into these flicks but I liked watching how it may be like to be a first generation Pakistani in Great Britain. A paki (Pakistani; English slang) immigrant comes to england and marries a second wife (a british one) because his first wife is in Pakistan; perhaps polygamy is allowed there(?) The dynamics between this couple are fairly amusing; he would threaten the English wife of bringing in the first wife if there ever was a war between India and Pakistan. The bulk of the film is about how his 4 teenage children deal with the strict old ways of the Pakistani father, who manages to get his 10 year old boy circumcised; perhaps a muslim tradition (?). A fun comedic film on racial tensions/cultural misunderstandings with a dose of interesting british slang.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Movie
Review: OK I'm biased, for my cousin, Damien O'Donnell directed this rather excellent movie...Funny as hell...I lived in the north of England for a while in similar areas as are depicted in the film. Buy it and laugh.... Carl J. Dempsey
Rating:
Summary: Don't expect slapstick comedy...
Review: Like most viewers, I was decieved by the trailer into thinking this was going to be a big screen version of "Goodness Gracious Me". While it does have its hilarious moments (the horny dalmatian, the meeting with the arranged brides)there is more of a serious overtone to the film. It is a film about living between two cultures, and family life. and there is very much a lot of truths displayed here. my sister was rather dismayed at the mother's (played Linda Bassett) devotion to her husband despite his treatment of her, but to me this is the whole point; that above all our fixations with cultural identity and pride love somewhat overrides this. The close relationship between the siblings is beautifully done. There is clearly a good chemistry between the cast members especially between Bassett and Om Puri.
Om Puri gets a bit frightening, though he does gain your sympathy in final frames.
Rating:
Summary: Fooled by a trailer, once again
Review: How many of you think this is a comedy? I rented this movie after seeing a trailer, with the distinct impression that it was. It is not! Who is responsible for putting the trailer together? Whoever did it, what a deceitful job! They took a few funny moments of the film, spliced them together and came up with this misrepresentation. This movie is in fact quite sad. It explores the huge cultural shift that takes place between émigrés and their first-generation children. In a sense, this film was not unlike The JoyLuck Club, for example. It does a very good job at presenting how difficult it is to bridge the cultural and generational gap. It also shows how hypocritical our parents can be in their behavior, and how different seven siblings can be. Another plus is the great job that the movie does showing a blue-collar English town in the mid-seventies. The acting is solid, the cinematography excellent, but do not expect a hilarious comedy by any means.
Rating:
Summary: Split personality
Review: This movie starts out as a comedy and works well until it suddenly forgets where it is going and turns into a nasty drama. The acting is good and the political and social commentary slightly acidic. It has it moments but they are mostly in the beginning of the film.
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