Advertisement

Movie Review: ANIKULAPO, when sceptre did not rise

By Agbo Favour Amarachi

THE word “Anikulapo” literally means ‘one who bears death in his pocket’ and this meaning was well established in the first instalment of the movie in 2022, but little or nothing of it was seen in the series till the last scenes.

Anikulapo

The six-part series follows Saro’s return to Oyo kingdom with orders to complete a near impossible task.

After the protagonist Saro (Kunle Remi) dies for the third time, he is sent back to earth to repay his debt to death before he can journey into heaven, failure to do so would make him a lost soul who wanders with no resting place for eternity. But Saro owes a huge debt, his task daunting, now a messenger of death, he returns to earth to begin a new mission.

The first two episodes of the sequel series serve as a link to the 2022 film, with the flashbacks, promising subplots, and new characters. However, the other four episodes fell flat of expectations and could not keep up with the momentum.

Episode 1 starts with Saro becoming a “Messenger of death”, he is no longer the leading character, unlike the pilot, this softens the story, but they were able to pull it off with the introduction of Bashorun (Owobo Ogunde) as a vicious, power hungry warlord in Oyo kingdom. Saro was able to kill three victims he had previously resurrected and the fourth one refused to die and thus struck a deal with him. He told Saro what to do to become human again and he would let her go. Saro followed her instructions on cheating ‘Death’ again and became human. One would think that would make ‘Death’ angry and come for him but No. Till the end of the series, we never saw the implication of Saro’s disobedience of the angel of death’s instruction. Saro resurrected 20 people and he was told to kill them again. He was able to kill three and they started following him everywhere, waiting for him to take them to the after life but nothing was said about the 17 left. That part got one pondering as the series progressed with Ifa priest advising Oba Ademuyiwa about the curse of Akala and the only way to avert it is by performing a sacrifice to appease the gods which would be carried out by Queen Arolake. This led to another search for Queen Arolake. Saro moved to Ilu Aje and with the help of the three ghosts, he started selling palm wine. He fell in ‘lust’ expectedly with Olatorera, the daughter of Karonunwi, the village palm wine tapper. Karounwi was Saro’s competitor and Saro did not mind collecting Karounwi’s source of income and his daughter. One expected a confrontation between the two, but we got none. Saro pleaded with the ghosts to grant him three more years to enjoy his new form before he would be ready to lead them to the after life and they obliged.

Meanwhile, Oyo kingdom grapples with Akala curse. Fasogun and Bashorun hatch a plan to bring Queen Arolake back to the kingdom. The King is torn between duty and compassion and faces opposition from Bashorun. Bashorun learns of Saro’s powers to raise the dead, from Adigun (the warrior that was sent in search of Arolake) and decides he must also possess the power and become the “Anikulapo”, this lust for power intensified his pursuit of Saro. Bashorun had to send Adigun to search and bring back Saro.

Meanwhile, Arolake (Bimbo Ademoye) is still on the run, lost in a forest where she meets Akin and his family who help her get settled in another village. Arolake had earlier spent the night in the forest where the witches of the forest gifted her a mystical pouch. This part got the viewer confused as one taught there would be implications but alas nothing happened! She becomes rich and decides to thwart the king’s pursuit by winning his favour through strategic gifting; million-dollar question is, did she succeed? Of course not.

There is a huge sense of declining efforts as the series raised more questions than answers and the expanded story pulls it’s focus away from Saro and Arolake to loosely linger on Bashorun’s quest for power and the ineffective battle between Awolaran (Lateef Adedemiji) and Prince Kuranga (Uzee Usman) for the king’s daughter, Omowunmi (Eyiyemi Afolayan).

The cinematography, costume and sound were excellent. Use of Yoruba intonations and dialect was outstanding, but their writing suffers from an attempt to build a bigger story. Some new character plot like Prince Kuranga falling in love with Princess Omowunmi while maintaining a cordial relationship with Oyo kingdom feels forced and disconnected from the main story.
The antagonist, often in a movie focuses on the protagonist, but in “Anikulapo; Rise of the spectre”, one can barely pinpoint who the protagonist is between Saro and Arolake.
However, the antagonist’s character is glaring, he is the epic centre of this series and he “killed his role”. Bashorun elevated the series with his complex and intriguing character.
In a turn of events, Bashorun’s pursuit of power and wealth leads to his death in the hands of Ede Warriors, ultimately leaving viewers confused about how a whole Bashorun can go down just like that and there were also no consequences and reprisal actions.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *