Sometimes you've just got to take a swing at tradition

Writer-director Nida Manzoor follows up her entertaining 2019 brown-girl punk band series We Are Lady Parts with this fresh spin on the British immigrant comedy. It mixes the high jinks of martial arts films with some smart genre-mashing of visually vibrant elements culled from video games, pop videos, TikTok challenges and Bollywood.

Manzoor’s debut feature tells the initially ordinary but soon hilarious tale of misfit, martial arts-obsessed teen Ria (Priya Kansara), who's intent on becoming a famous stuntwoman — she has the YouTube videos to prove her dedication. She solicits the help of older sister and best friend Lena (Ritu Arya) to produce her videos. Lena, who’s disappointed her family and herself by dropping out of art school again and spending her days getting stoned, is happy to help. After all, she hasn’t got anything better to do. When Lena suddenly finds herself the chosen future wife of the handsome, eminently eligible geneticist Salim Shah (Akshaye Khanna), Ria is distraught and allows her imagination to run wild as she sets about ensuring her sister’s artistic potential won’t be curtailed by her perplexing descent into the socially acceptable life of a wife.

Kansara’s feisty pigheadedness and Arya’s cool nonchalance make for a strong pairing as the sisters find themselves pitted against each other in a standoff worthy of the martial arts films they love. By the time the wedding day arrives, things have taken a horror-tinged turn, but it isn't certain whether Ria’s objections will be heard or whether she’ll be the lone wolf fighting her family and the demented Shahs in a battle for her elder sibling's soul. Plenty of clever, genre-winking fun is had along the way.

The film’s second half doesn't work as well as its snappier, punchier first — a plot twist is out of sync with the rest of its feminist take on the action genre — but it mostly holds together thanks to assured direction of its myriad influences and committed performances from the two lead actors.

It’s a film containing, within its pleasing genre reworks and charming pop culture references, a relatable theme about siblings; the inevitable separation that comes with growing up and the necessity of sometimes being willing to kick the hell out of your antagonists to save the ones you love, no matter what your parents or community thinks.