KESARI THE KING’, a razzmatazz too small for big screen


By Amadi Chimaobi Kingsley

NIGERIAN filmmakers should showcase more originality and mirror the positive image of women, cultural values and norms in Nigeria, rather than concentrating attention on old fetish cultural practices that can portray the people, especially women in a bad light and also insulting the viewers intelligence.

The above advise should have come in handy in the movie entitled Kesari The King. Ironically, the four-part project has gone on to win Best Movie and Best Producer of the Year in the Yoruba category at the 2019 City People Entertainment Awards. Ibrahim Yekini (popularly called Itele) also won Best Actor in a lead role at the 2019 Best of Nollywood Awards for his role in Return of Kesari.

And now we are presented with Kesari The King on the big screen and at the heart of this tale is Ibrahim Yekini himself, who not only directs but also takes on the lead role. His character is no ordinary one; it’s that of a legendary deity who, against all odds, transforms into a notorious robber.

Kesari’s plot is like a supernatural Yoruba version of Peter Pan, reminiscent of Robin Hood, where the protagonist’s actions are driven by a sense of moral justice but then we’ve seen so much of this storyline, it smears the movie with boilerplate. There is nothing spectacular about the movie’s storyline. 

The movie starts with a gang of bandits (Odunlade Adekola and Deyemi Okanlawon, (one must add, it was refreshing watching Deyemi in an epic movie), they wanted slaves every six months and had an agreement with Dele Odule that if he did not comply, his children would become the slaves they wanted. They eventually killed Dele Odule’s daughter as a lesson to him which led Odule to seek justice from Kesari’s Tree abode. He summons Kasari and he took revenge by killing the bandits and suddenly Kasari doesn’t want to be a deity living in a tree and he decides to join the world of the living and boom! We were presented with a backstory of how he was born into the world of the living for the fourth time. His mum died while giving birth to him and in a fit of rage,  he killed his father and became a head of gold and before the viewers could put two and two together some local thieves (Boma, Mr. Macaroni, Lateef Adeyemi, Kevin) broke into a house where the statue was kept, they wanted to steal it and he turned back to human and decided to be the king of thieves, forgetting he was supposed to punish the thieves, he joins them. At this point, the viewer losing his patience.

The movie’s plot further confuses the audience as Kesari and his gang of robbers continue their audacious heists, with Kesari’s superpowers making him nearly invincible. The police force, initially powerless against him, begins a relentless pursuit, leading to a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. As the tension escalates, secrets are unveiled, alliances are tested, and the pursuit becomes a matter of personal and professional pride for the police chief played by Femi Adebayo and his team.

The strippers club scenes were the most disappointing scenes of all. You can’t watch this part with young kids at home and it had little or nothing to add to the plot also the prostitution gang wasn’t convincing.

The film’s sound effects occasionally feel excessive and distracting, with over-the-top emphasis on every action and dialogue. The transitions between scenes can be jarring, and at times, multiple layers of sound compete for the audience’s attention. Let’s not even talk about the costumes and the wig kasari wore, that was an eye sore, the old man who lived for 200 year’s makeup was falling off at a point and he could speak fluent English, that was unbelievable!

Furthermore, Kesari’s displays of power to various supernatural artifacts, the star-studded cast, the visual elements are not bad although Kesari’s display of power looks laughable sometimes, especially in the final scene of the movie when he supernaturally goes around shooting the police officers. It was just too unreal.

The movie started with kasari coming out from a tree and he ended up in a book is a fact one can’t wrap his head around or the fact that the police officers could not apprehend him even when Femi Adebayo, the police chief lost an eye to that effect.

Ibrahim Yekini still has a long way to go as his first attempt at a cinema movie was a 2/10 for this critic. Fact is, this movie should have stayed on YouTube.




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