Three single friends, one get-rich scheme, and a journey that falls apart almost immediately — Asghar Hashemi's 2004 comedy Mojarad ha (The Singles) sends its heroes toward the Persian Gulf chasing easy money and hands them a lesson none of them ordered.
What is Mojarad ha about?
Convinced that well-paid jobs are waiting for them in the Emirates, three young bachelors pool everything they have and set off with big plans and even bigger egos. The scheme collapses fast: they are robbed on the way, left stranded without the money that was supposed to launch their new lives. Rescue arrives from the last place their pride expected — an Iranian entrepreneur, Ms. Arabshahi, who offers the penniless trio honest work. For three men accustomed to talking down to women, answering to one becomes the engine of the comedy, and their swagger gets chipped away scene by scene as the job teaches them everything they left home without.
About the cast
Mohammad Reza Forutan, one of the busiest leading men of that era of Iranian cinema, plays one of the three bachelors and heads the cast, joined by comedy performer Manouchehr Azari and Foad Chavmeh in supporting roles. Most of the film's humour rides on the bickering between the three bachelors — and on their collisions with their formidable new employer.
Context & significance
Made in 2004, the picture belongs to a familiar strand of Iranian popular comedy: young men chasing fortunes abroad and discovering the grass is no greener on the far shore. Work migration to the Gulf states was a live topic for Iranian audiences in those years, and Hashemi plays it for laughs while letting the bachelors' outdated attitudes toward women absorb the real beating. The result lands somewhere between a road-trip comedy and a gentle social satire, moving briskly through its 96 minutes.
Watching Mojarad ha on Ktime
Mojarad ha streams on K-Time in its original Farsi audio. Browsing this page costs nothing; watching only requires a K-Time account login. The service is designed for the Iranian diaspora, with a Persian interface and a deep shelf of 2000s Iranian comedies to line up right after this one.