1996-03-27

A raucous and amazingly irreverent look at contemporary Cairo, THE ASPHALT KING centers on Sayed, a swaggering cabdriver and (to his mind) born womanizer. Embroiled in a torrid affair with a buxom neighbor, Sayed pays his best friend Ringo to keep the neighbor's barber husband busy -- but the husband, as well as Ringo, Sayed's mother, father, sister and grandfather, have their own amorous intrigues brewing. Director Oussama Fawzi has been hailed as the brightest young director to have recently emerged in Egyptian cinema.

Aflam Guirguiss Fawzy