I.D.

It's been 11 years (sigh) since Eddie Murphy and Cleveland's Arsenio Hall had a hit with a trans-African premise in “Coming to America.” Now Africa has answered – with a rollicking satire of crazy coincidences, near-misses, and mistaken and/or lost identities. King Mani Kongo of Bakongo decides to make his first journey to Europe since 1959 when, as a leading figure of the newly independent Belgian Congo, he was the new face of an optimistic infant nation. But that was many economic collapses and civil wars ago. Now old Mani Kongo dons his tribal fetishes again to return to Brussels to find Mwana, daughter of his favorite wife. Mwana went to Belgium for her own safety while still a child; by now Mani Kongo figures, she must have earned her medical degree and is ready to serve her country. In truth, Mwana is an ex-convict cabaret dancer in the semi-lawless African quarter, filled with crooks of all colors, where the king soon finds himself robbed, stripped, and no better off than the mulatto cabbie who befriends him. Despite its screwball arc from prince to pauper and back again, I.D. has a serious core, underlined by the opening dedication: “To the African Diaspora.” (In French with English subtitles)