Bunny Chow review

Huh? A film about South Africa with no saintly activist or dirty diamond in sight? John Barker’s debut is instead refreshingly focused on the everyday antics of a bunch of stand-up comics who ditch girl hassles to go on a road trip to perform at the Oppikoppi Rock Festival. With few snippets of actual stand-up, Bunny Chow’s edgy humour springs from the credible crew’s improv banter. Lest we forget where we are, racial tension abounds in a movie whose title (yep, had us head-scratching, too) comes from a local dish of bread filled with vege-mix, “like the melting pot that is Johannesburg”. Shot in black and white with a dub soundtrack and atmospheric cityscapes by the bucketload, it’s a slicker South Africa we see, more down with urban culture than is usually shown on celluloid.