A movie from overseas that mixes comedy and drama, about a young girl adrift in a foreign culture who finds reconciliation with her family and romance to boot by playing a forbidden sport. Sound familiar? It’s the conceit that made Bend it Like Beckham an international hit in 2002, and it’s being trotted out again for the Danish film Fighter.Though it’s set in Copenhagen and stars a Muslim girl who wants to do kung fu, Fighter is essentially the same culture clash story, but dramatic in all the places Beckham was light. For that reason it probably won’t be the same size hit as the soccer movie was, but it tells yet another story that’s important to hear in our globalizing world.
22-year-old Semra Turan makes her acting debut as Aicha, a tomboy with a handful of anger issues who bristles both at the racist attitudes of native Danes and her Turkish parents’ traditional beliefs. Aicha’s brother Ali is engaged to rich Jasmin, but before the marriage is completed the entire family must be on their best behavior, which means no kung fu for Aicha. Going behind her parents’ backs Aicha joins an elite kung fu training group, befriending Sofie (Molly Blixt Egelind) and sparking a rivalry with Emil (Cyron Melville), the handsome star of the club who is both intrigued and intimidated by Aicha’s Muslim heritage. She and Emil eventually build a relationship, but between the kung fu and the romance with a Danish boy, Aicha’s secret life eventually has consequences for her family, and especially for Ali.
From time to time the drama in Fighter seems a little heavy-handed; it’s clear that life as a Turkish Muslim in white, Christian Denmark can be fraught with peril, but the way every single action results in disaster comes off as silly after a while. The drama gives Aicha multiple opportunities to show off her kung fu skills, though, both with Emil in practice and against Omar (Behruz Banissi), an antagonistic fellow Turk who threatens to out Aicha to her family. Turan has trained in kung fu for years, and it’s a pleasure to watch her fight with all the intensity a real-life Aicha would bring to each kick and punch.
Fighter follows a traditional trajectory, as Aicha trains for the big tournament and inevitably faces off against Omar one last time. But writer-director Natasha Arthy shies away from a cut-and-dry happy ending, choosing instead to realistically portray the challenges facing Muslims in Western Europe. It’s not the most crowd-pleasing decision, and will probably limit the movie to art-house audiences when it really does have wider appeal. Fighter could have been a kick-ass martial arts drama along the lines of Never Back Down, but Arthy has made a better, and more serious, film instead. The movie’s fate after Tribeca will better determine whether or not that was a good idea.
