Fighter

Hopscotch Entertainment

R4 DVD

English subtitles

It has taken me a while to get around to viewing this film. It turned out to be quite a gem with good acting, brilliant fight sequences and an intelligent plot involving cross-cultural conflicts.

Aicha (Semra Turan) is the daughter of a Muslim family in Denmark. Her father, used to being the dominant one in the family, is not doing so well in a non-Muslim country with different cultural values. He is stuck in a deadend job and resents it. He may have a way out, though. Aicha’s brother is to marry a girl from another good Muslim family and the girl’s father has promised him a job driving taxis after the wedding. This will be a step up for him so the whole family wants to see it go ahead.

Aicha is, according to her father’s wishes, supposed to be preparing to go to medical school so she can follow her brother and become a doctor. She is not overly impressed with schoolwork and her school grades are lacklustre. Her only passion is Kung Fu. The school has a small training club, but even there Aicha is in trouble. Her uncontrolled temper leads to her being booted out of the school team but her instructor, sensing Aicha’s ability, refers her to another training club where the sport is taught at a higher level.

The new club is mixed – men and girls – and her father will not stand for this so she is banned from Kung Fu. She continues to attend, though, and starts to form an affection for Emil, a non-Muslim boy in her group who helps her to train. This would really anger her father if he knew. It is completely against his Muslim traditions and he would regard her as a slut. Emil himself is confused about dating a Muslim girl so the relationship develops slowly. Another boy in a class at the training school, Omar, is a Muslim and when ordered to he will not train against Aicha – it is beneath his dignity as a Muslim to fight a girl.

Matters come to a head at the engagement party for her brother and her prospective sister-in-law. Aicha and Omar are involved in a fight and she gets the blame. For bringing shame on her father’s family (it is always the girl who is at fault) the engagement is broken off and her father’s new job will not go ahead. She runs away from home and stays with one of the other girl Kung Fu trainees. There is only one thing left in her life – the upcoming Kung Fu championship.

Her brother, however, has got his girlfriend pregnant and he is getting a savage beating from her male relatives when Aicha goes to visit him. Her Kung Fu skills stop the beating abruptly and she counsels her brother to see his girlfriend’s father, apologise, and try to get the engagement going again.

On the day of the Championships her first priority is to do well. She must fight her way to the top, and along the way she must fight Emil and then Omar. Then she must decide on her future, try to reunite with her family, and try to rebuild her life to fit into both cultures. And what of her future with Emil?

It is sad that many people cannot reconcile their culture with the culture of their new country. It will usually be the young that suffer the worst, but I also felt some sympathy for Aicha’s father trapped at the bottom of a new culture that he could not adapt to.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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