4 Movies Like Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

This Canadian drama is directed by, written by, and stars first-time director Agam Darshi. It’s a labor of love about a 30-something woman who takes care of her sick father while trying to become a writer.

Mona (the character) comes from an immigrant Indian family, and she is proudly the black sheep of the bunch. When a visitor greets her with “God is Truth” in Punjabi, she replies in English with “Merry Christmas”, and when aunties catch her smoking she gives them the middle finger. Not to mention she is sleeping with a married man.

And yet the way the movie is made it works as a universal story - one about finding purpose in taking care of one’s parents while navigating complex family dynamics.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Agam Darshi, Huse Madhavji, Husein Madhavji, Kim Coates, Sandy Sidhu, Stephen Lobo

Director: Agam Darshi

For a film with virtually no plot, there’s a lot of fuss going on in Oregon. The characters are constantly yelling and complaining, but the noise—like the plot, the set, and everything else about the film—is empty. The beauty of a Turkish summer is reduced to indoor sets, where much of the film takes place, and there here’s barely any movement, leaving us stuck with dialogue and half-baked backstories that don’t seem to serve any real purpose other than to fill in the film’s overlong runtime. The problems are superficial and solved almost immediately, purely by talking it seems, and there’s no attempt to connect the many disparate stories it shows. A farce like this could’ve worked if it got sillier and more ridiculous by the minute, but Oregon just goes in repetitive, unfunny circles. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Ali İpin, Alper Baytekin, Alper Saldıran, Aslı İnandık, Burcu Biricik, Ferit Aktuğ, Gün Akıncı, Melisa Doğu, Nazlı Bulum, Nejat İşler, Nevra Serezli, Onur Özaydın, Özgür Emre Yıldırım, Selen Uçer, Serkan Çayoğlu, Zihni Göktay

Director: Kerem Ayan