Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

gavin6942 Lucky is a young black man in South Africa, who feels the oppression of apartheid. Once the apartheid ends, though... the life for blacks gets no easier. In his own form of affirmative action, he helps grow a large, powerful gang to get ahead. Is it right or wrong, and was it necessary? Ralph Ziman is a director from South Africa. While he started of in music video, once he came into his own, he told the tale of South Africa with a passion that no one else has yet matched. Recent films like "Invictus" or "District 9" try to capture the spirit, and in some ways do, but Ziman has it inside him and has the talent to let it out.I must say, there was an unfortunate naming choice with "Gangster's Paradise", and this gives it a cheaper feel. The original title, "Jerusalema", was more than adequate and gives the film a mature moniker that it richly deserves. I am not sure who felt American audiences couldn't handle the original title, but they have done the film a great disservice.We have seen our share of South Central Los Angeles gang movies. Here is a film that has parallels, but offers an interesting moral perspective on a racial, global issue. Can you empathize with a thieving thug? If you watch this film, you just might.

Rick James If the goal is to mimic action thrillers from the US, this film does a satisfactory job. If it is to reflect the current situation in South Africa, I tend to doubt its authenticity: Lucky's activities on this massive scale seem implausible or impossible. If the makers of the film had wanted to make political statements they could just as well have had Lucky "rehabilitate" a couple of buildings, which is probably what actually happened "in real life." They chose instead to dramatize and enlarge the scope, simply for effect and to make the character grander and more heroic. That's fair, but the numerous anachronisms and "goofs" already elaborated by other cinephiles illustrate that the production while compelling was sloppyWithout in any way trying to condescend, Hollywood could have done the action of this show better, but there is a lot of credit due the production, so it's a pity the production goes for visual and physical effect instead of character development and a convincing story line. The action is lively but episodic, I could swear I see the same apartment-building entrance posing several times as different buildings, and the acting is inconsistent. The "love affair" seems like an afterthought, perhaps to rattle the cage of white Afrikaners, and the flat- footed naming of the police bad guy "Swart" (Black) is just too obvious. It's worth seeing, not twice.

bintaboo This film was such a disappointment. It sensationalizes crime, celebrates materialism, denigrates Black Africans in general, debases Black women in particular, and glorifies Whites in the same subliminal ways that are so prevalent in Hollywood. As "entertainment" it merely serves to perpetuate all that is bad about South Africa today. I am totally bewildered by those who claim it is better than Tsotsie. No, it is a cheap, trashy, commercial, gangster movie with no morally redeeming value at all. That said, the acting was good, as were some of the technical aspects of the very violent scenes. But the violence was way too gratuitous, as was the excessive footage of half-naked Black women hanging out in the Nigerian drug dealers' den. Sadly, the fact that so many young South Africans seem drawn to the film says more about the present state of social and political consciousness of young South Africans than about the quality of the film.

Tsepo Modise Tsotsi is nothing compared to Jerusalema. Finally a real South African movie that can hold its head up high. Totally authentic, all respect to those involved. A mirror on Jozi and what our lives are really like. I hope other film makers will take note and pull their sox up. It's time to stop being embarrassed about being South African and take pride in our local industry. I strongly recommend all South Africans and go and see it on the big screen as the producers intended. I'm gonna spread the word. And please, do not by pirated DVD's; help enable the local movie industry to grow... I loved this movie. I cannot say it enough times. I am speechless. KUDOS MZANSI.