|
Al-Fankoosh is
alive
Shrinking globe: Edible liquor
is coming to Korea... does this remind anyone of Adel Imam's Al-Fankoosh?
by Tarek Atia
(cairolive.com, January 14, 2002) Does
anyone remember that old Adel Imam film about the advertising executive
who made up a product called "Al-Fankoosh"?
The film co-starred
Mervat Amin and Ahmed Rateb. Adel Imam was at his best playing the
competitive ad exec who wants a contract so badly that he comes up with
a product name and a series of commercials before he even knows what the
product in question is. But the "Fankoosh" ads are so
successful that he is later forced to actually come up with a product to
fit the name.
He tries everything.
A perfume, food, etc... He ends up hiring a mad scientist to develop a
product for him that will fit the name. And what does the guy come up
with?
Edible liquor.
Al-Fankoosh ends up
being chocolates that pack the wallop of a bottle of whisky.
Imam and Mervat Amin
-- his staunchest enemy and competitor -- eat a whole box of them and
spend a wild drunken night together where they get married without
really being aware of what they're doing.
So that's the power
of al-Fankoosh...
 Now,
it seems, a company in South Korea is going to be making a real-life
fankoosh-like product. Reuters reports that the Kooksoondang Brewery
"has come up with an alternative way for people to enjoy their
favorite tipple -- 'chewable liquor'".
The report says the
company "developed a gelatin form of its popular Paeksaejoo rice
wine, a mild version of South Korea's fiery soju liquor," -- a new
candified alcohol product which sounds very much like al-Fankoosh.
Coincidence? Or yet
another example of Egypt's continuing ability to pioneer. In the summer
of 2001 we saw -- in cairolive's The critic -- how a sub plot in the
blockbuster Hollywood epic Pearl Harbor seemed to be lifted from an old
Mahmoud Yassin film. Now it looks like the Koreans are watching old Adel
Imam films looking for ideas.
When will the madness end?
Disclaimer
and Terms of Use
© Copyright 1996-2005 cairolive.com. All Rights Reserved
|
