"Actor: Akbar Kurtha"

• Bhaji On The Beach | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £10.70   |  Saving you £-0.71 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Bhaji on the Beach is the directorial debut of Gurinda Chadha, which--like her next film, What's Cooking--features women as the central characters and seems to involve food at every turn. It's an ensemble piece, which takes a while to establish the characters' relationships with each other. But eventually the focus of the film--based on a story by Meera Syal--gets distilled to a group of women taken on a day trip to Blackpool by a progressive thinking "sister". The skies are suitably grey as they arrive in the English resort town, with the amusement arcades, takeaways and shop fronts looking tacky and run down. There's Ginder (Kim Vithana), who has run away from her violent husband, Hashida (Sarita Khajuria), who has a major decision to make and conservative aunties Asha (Lalita Ahmed) and Pushpa (Zohra Sehgal), not to mention youngsters Ladhu (Nisha K Nayar) and Madhu (Renu Kochar) who are just along for the excitement. As the day wears on, tension mounts between the different generations as secrets come out into the open. It matters little that the plot feels a touch contrived--particularly the convergence of significant characters towards the end--as there's a lot of energy in the performances. The result is a bit rough around the edges, but there's a lot to amuse here, not least in the colourful nod to Bollywood contained in Asha's many dream sequences. --Emma Perry

• My Son The Fanatic | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Farid (Akbar Kurtha) is a seething and disillusioned twenty-something Asian man living in northern England. Looking for inspiration after a disastrous falling out with his white fiancee's family he turns to religion. His father Parvez (Om Puri) a good-natured taxi driver is becoming increasingly estranged from his wife Minoo (Gopi Desai) and finds affection with the local prostitute Bettina (Rachel Griffiths). Islamic fundamentalism is caught head on with western hedonism over the kitchen table of this Asian family as father and son realise the extremity of their differences. Farid and his fanatical friends begin an aggressive campaign to rid the streets of prostitutes just as Parvez realises he could be falling in love with Bettina. Meanwhile visiting German businessman Schitz (Stellan Skarsgard) has his own plans for the girl and her colleagues in his search for pleasure. My Son The Fanatic is a heartwarming story of love against the odds set against a comic clash of generations and culture.