A lethal formula that can kill all the snob cinephiles, only reading the ingredients.
We aren’t snob and this mixture is a great thing because this is a great B movie, a pearl that comes from Egypt, Lebanon and Kuwait
"Zi'ab the ta'kol to lahm", original title that means "Wolves do not eat meat" is a 1973 film that is/was torn to shreds by most people.
For us however this Egyptian movie with a Lebanon crew, errors a part, is a very interesting cinema exercise that in many aspects is really surprising.
The history says the dark Lebanese director Samir Khouri spend some time in Italy working with directors like Bergonzelli, learning and watching genre movies. In his cultural baggage there is room for Fellini’s masterpieces and even for the American action movies.
The result is that "Kuwait Connection" that shamessly combines various genres.
It starts as poliziottesco, and then continues as an erotic movie, war movie, becomes horror, turns in thriller and yes, the ending pay homage to Fellini and quoting Dostoevsky.
Apart from a poor production and a poor acting (and a difficult plot) this melting pot creates a cinematic work that sure is loved by to the group of contemporary directors that refer to genre films and b movies.
It goes without saying, however, that all these changes of languages lead to boring moments and to fast moments leaving the viewer, until the end, the question of being in front of a big crap or a good genre movie.
You know our response and our motivations to this question, an opinion that comes after thinking for long and after seeing this amazing story
The protagonist is Anwar (played by Ezzat El Alaili famous in Egypt) that appears in the middle of a violent chase. Wounded he takes refuge in a house, rather libertine, where Maya lives with her husband and various strange persons.
Thanks to an impossible coup de theatre the woman is the only love of Anwar abandoned several years earlier.
With long flashbacks the man tells all his vicissitudes as a journalist/intellectual pure and spotless that becomes merciless killer thanks to the violence of the wars.
From here "Kuwait Connection" begins to add an infinite number of subplots, there is the plan for kill the landlord, there are magic rites and there is also the mob searching for Anwar.
Then quotes of Fellini and Dostoevsky give us a final suspended in the dream.
Bizarre, absurd and sometimes difficult to follow this Egyptian film is notable for an unsettling freedom of costumes that show many times the bodies of the actresses.
Khouri also search a quality direction sometimes he succeeds and sometimes not, but the attempt is admirable and we recommend the viewing of this movie.