Review of East Is East

Introduction

Trailed as "the UK`s smash hit comedy", it should be made clear (as everyone is at pains to point out in the interviews featured as part of the extras - more of that later) that this is not an "asian" film, and it`s not entirely a comedy film either.

It is in fact a film about a family from Manchester (who just happen to be mixed race), set in the early 1970s. Yes it does have some comedic moments in it but it`s definitely not a full-on comedy.

Video

Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic, you get a very good feeling of early 1970s Manchester. The exteriors look very grey (something to do with that stereotypical Manchester rain?) and the film is obviously not set in summer. This is not a criticism however as its obviously how the film was supposed to be.

And to contrast with the dull and dismal exteriors, you get lots of nice late 1960s/early 1970s clothing on your lead chatacters. Laugh at the huge pointy collars, enjoy the mad hair, relive those fashion mistakes.

And there is a proper bright orange space hopper which crops up throughout the film!

Audio

A DD5.1 soundtrack is available, but rarely used to full capacity. This isn`t an all action blockbuster though, so that`s to be expected. There are a few crowd scenes to work the rear speakers a tiny bit, but it`s mostly dialogue from the centre channel.

There are some segments of music during the film, which sound fine and theree are also a couple of now-almost-compulsory "dance around or do some dressing up to music"(tm) scenes too.

Features

Plenty of extras for you here. The original trailer is included - don`t watch it before you watch the film though as some of the best jokes are in it ! There are also 2 TV trailers - one is 20 seconds long and is pretty pointles. The other is half as long and twice as pointless !

There are also some deleted scenes which wouldn`t have added much and it`s easy to see why they ended up on the old cutting room floor. There is also some behind the scenes footage, which is "different".

Pushing up the extras count even more, we continue with cast and crew interviews, which are rather annoyingly peppered with cuts to full screen captions of the next topic. This stops them flowing naturally and gives them a stop/start feel. However, there are some interesting points made in the interviews. The director doesn`t come across all that well though.

This is a problem when you get to the next extra - the director`s commentary - which sounds monotonous and quite lifeless in places.

A couple more features to note - a Dolby Digital trailer is included (the cinema/helicopter one) as an optional extra - I`ve seen this before as part of the intros on BBC discs. And there is also an audio description soundtrack.

Conclusion

So, a feature packed disc with good visuals and good sound, and we get it before region 1. I should be rejoicing at this point. But I`m not.

There was something about the film that just didn`t work. Having one of the lead characters as such a one dimensional figure of hate doesn`t really work because he`s not a "villain" in the film sense. I`m sure that the development of the character in this way is intentional but it doesn`t sit too easily with the lighter moments of the film.

The film is well acted and directed (Om Puri and Linda Bassett do a great job in their roles) but again it just didn`t seem to strike a healthy balance between cheap laughs (and there are plenty of these) and serious drama. I have a feeling that it probably worked better in its original stage incarnation.

As a DVD package it is good, as a film I wasn`t convinced.