There's a specific kind of film that makes you want to slow-clap for the ambition alone, even before you've fully worked out whether the execution matches it. "Anikulapo" is exactly that kind of film.
It's a 17th-century Yoruba epic built on real cosmology, real historical texture, and a genuinely inventive central conceit — a mystical bird that can raise the dead, and the terrible, seductive cost of using that power carelessly. For its first hour, it's some of the most confident, visually rich filmmaking Nollywood has produced in years. Then, somewhere in its back half, it loses its grip on exactly what kind of story it wants to tell, and the whole thing gets noticeably shakier on its way to the finish line.
I still think it's worth your time, and honestly, worth genuine celebration for what it accomplishes. I just don't think it's the flawless masterpiece some of the early buzz suggested, and I want to walk through both halves of that honestly.
What "Anikulapo" Is Actually About
The story follows Saro, played by Kunle Remi, a traveling cloth weaver skilled in the traditional "aso-ofi" loom technique, who arrives in the ancient Oyo Kingdom as a stranger looking for work and opportunity. He's quickly taken in by Awarun, played by Sola Sobowale, a wealthy market woman who offers him shelter, employment, and — eventually — herself, turning him into something closer to a kept companion than a simple hired hand. Saro, for his part, doesn't put up much resistance to that arrangement, despite warnings from his friend Akanji, played by Mr Macaroni, that Awarun has a well-earned reputation for consuming the men who fall into her orbit.
Things escalate considerably from there. Saro becomes entangled with Queen Arolake, played by Bimbo Ademoye, the Alaafin's youngest wife — young, unhappy in her marriage, resented by the king's older wives, and uninterested in the elderly ruler she's dutifully obligated to. Her affair with Saro is discovered, and he's beaten to death for it. That should be the end of his story. Instead, he encounters Akala, a mystical bird believed in Yoruba spiritual tradition to hold the power to give and take life, and Saro is resurrected — earning him the name Anikulapo, meaning, roughly, "he who carries death in his pouch." From there, Saro and Arolake go on the run together, and Saro, now wielding a power that sets him apart from ordinary mortals, begins a slow, inevitable descent into arrogance and greed that the film clearly wants you to understand as the real engine of his downfall, more than any external villain ever could be.
A Title Borrowed From Real Nigerian History
It's worth pausing on the title itself, because it's doing more cultural work than a casual viewer might initially clock. "Anikulapo" is the same phrase Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti famously invoked after being arrested and tortured by the Nigerian government, defiantly declaring that they couldn't kill him because he was Anikulapo — that he carried death in his own pouch, on his own terms. Kunle Afolayan's film draws directly on that same defiant resonance, giving Saro a character arc built around the same idea: a man who becomes, in a very literal sense, difficult to kill, and who has to grapple with what that kind of power actually does to a person who was never prepared to hold it responsibly.
Kunle Afolayan, Once Again Insisting on Telling "Our Own Story"
If you've followed Kunle Afolayan's career at all — through films like "The Figurine," "October 1," "Citation," and "Swallow" — you already know his signature instinct: an insistence on centering Africanness, and specifically Yoruba cultural identity, in every visible layer of his filmmaking, regardless of setting or genre. One reviewer put it well, noting that this holds true even in his more modern, urban productions, where he still finds ways to foreground language, music, and cultural specificity rather than defaulting to a more globally generic visual style.
"Anikulapo" is arguably the fullest, most unrestrained expression of that instinct in his filmography so far. Afolayan himself has described the project as something like "Game of Thrones recreated in Nigeria, but with a better representation of our culture" — a bold comparison, and one more than one critic gently pushed back on as a bit of an overreach. But it's not an unreasonable pitch for what the film is actually trying to do: build a richly imagined, culturally specific mythic universe, rooted not in invented fantasy lore but in the Odù Ifá — the sacred texts of the Ifá spiritual tradition, the same body of belief that underlies Candomblé and Santería practices across the African diaspora. That's a genuinely different foundation than most fantasy epics work from, and it gives "Anikulapo" a spiritual seriousness that a lot of Western fantasy filmmaking, borrowing loosely from myth for aesthetic flavor, doesn't really attempt.
The Production Design: Genuinely a Masterclass
Whatever criticisms end up landing on this film, the physical craft of it is close to unimpeachable, and I want to be specific about why, because "beautiful" as a description undersells what's actually happening on screen. Reviewers across the board — professional critics and casual viewers alike — consistently singled out the production design, costuming, hair, and makeup work as genuinely exceptional. The film takes real, evident care in depicting pre-colonial Yoruba daily life: traditional weaving techniques demonstrated in loving detail, festival scenes, communal cooking, people walking barefoot through dusty compounds, fabric-making and clay-molding processes shown with the specificity of a film that clearly consulted real cultural experts rather than approximating "old-timey African village" from imagination.
That level of specificity matters enormously for a story trying to earn the label "mythopoetic." It would be easy for a film like this to lean on vague, generalized visual signifiers of "ancient Africa" — the kind of flattening gesture a lot of Western productions default to when depicting pre-colonial African settings. "Anikulapo" refuses that shortcut entirely, and the difference is visible in every frame.
Casting Veterans With Genuine Respect
One of the film's smartest choices, repeatedly praised across reviews, was its deliberate inclusion of veteran Yoruba theatre and film actors — performers like Kareem Adepoju ("Baba Wande"), Taiwo Hassan ("Ogogo"), Adebayo Salami, and Faithia Balogun, several of whom trace their acting roots back to foundational Nigerian theatre groups, including some connected to Afolayan's own father's Ade Love Theatre Group. One reviewer, clearly moved by watching these performers in action, noted that "old wine tastes good even in new gourds" — a lovely way of describing how well these veterans' command of proverbs, idiom, and traditional language cadence holds up decades into their careers, adding a texture of authenticity that younger cast members alone couldn't have provided.
There's a genuinely clever creative decision buried in the casting too, worth calling out specifically: the Alaafin, the king at the center of the story's central betrayal, is cast as a non-speaking role. Rather than have an actor attempt to deliver dialogue in period-appropriate Yoruba that could easily ring false or anachronistic, Afolayan builds the king's authority entirely through presence and silence, communicated instead through a royal messenger — a choice that isn't just a clever workaround for a casting or language challenge, but one genuinely rooted in real Yoruba royal tradition. Historically, some Yoruba and Benin monarchs, including certain Ọọni of Ifẹ, reportedly did not speak directly and publicly in exactly this way, relying instead on an Oníṣe Ọba, a designated royal spokesperson. Building that historical practice directly into the film's structure, rather than treating it as pure invention, is exactly the kind of detail that separates "Anikulapo" from a more generic, less researched approach to historical fantasy.
Kunle Remi and Bimbo Ademoye, as the central romantic pair, also drew consistent praise, with multiple reviewers noting a chemistry between them that felt genuinely alive on screen — one review going so far as to suggest it read like a bond carried over from an offscreen relationship and put to excellent use in front of the camera. Remi in particular was widely credited with the best performance of his career to that point, managing to show real range across the different facets of Saro's arc — pain, pride, infatuation, and eventually a kind of corrupted, dangerous power — without the performance collapsing into a single dominant note.
Where the Story Runs Into Real Trouble
Here's where I have to be honest, because the criticism here is remarkably consistent across a wide range of reviewers, and it matches my own reaction closely: the second half of "Anikulapo" is a genuinely noticeable step down from the first. Multiple reviews specifically flagged the back half as dragging, with the plot's central twists landing as flat or underwhelming relative to the strength of the setup. One Rotten Tomatoes critic summed up a common sentiment concisely: you can't fault the film's ambition, but at over two hours, it becomes too long and tedious to fully recommend without reservation.
Part of the problem seems to be tonal and structural uncertainty about what kind of morality tale the film actually wants to tell. It's very clearly building toward a message about greed and the corrupting influence of unearned power — one viewer summarized the film's lessons almost like a list of proverbs in their own review, noting that imposter syndrome breeds greed, that greed leads to ruin, and that karma, however delayed, eventually collects its due. That's a coherent, classically mythic structure. But several reviewers felt the actual mechanics of Saro's descent — the specific plot beats that are supposed to dramatize his corruption — don't land with enough clarity or intrigue to fully justify the story's fantasy premise. One IMDb reviewer put this particularly well, noting that while the film's production is beautiful and rich, the story itself simply isn't intriguing enough to match it — that a genuine fantasy epic needs more mystery and more magic than "Anikulapo" ultimately delivers, especially once the initial premise of resurrection and immortality-adjacent power has been established.
The Sex Scene Controversy, and a Genuinely Confusing Relationship Origin
There's a specific criticism that came up repeatedly and deserves honest treatment here, because it touches on something more serious than pacing or plotting. Several reviewers raised real confusion and discomfort about how the relationship between Saro and Queen Arolake actually begins on screen. One review bluntly asked why the Queen appears to force herself on Saro in their initial encounter — described in that review as a rape — before the film abruptly cuts to a consensual-seeming sexual scene between the two of them shortly after, without much clarity or narrative bridging about how the dynamic between them shifted from one to the other. That same reviewer noted it wasn't until a third scene together that the two characters actually have a real conversation, leaving the emotional and narrative logic of their entire relationship feeling under-explained relative to how central it is to everything that follows.
This ties into a separate, more publicly discussed controversy: the film's use of nudity drew significant attention at the time of release, in part because lead actress Bimbo Ademoye had previously stated in an earlier interview that she would never perform in a nude or sex scene in any film, citing her father as a reason. Her appearance in scenes of this nature in "Anikulapo" generated real conversation and some criticism online about that apparent reversal. I don't think it's my place to adjudicate an actor's personal artistic choices, and actors are certainly entitled to change their minds about roles over time — but it's a genuinely notable part of the film's public reception that's worth being upfront about, rather than pretending the conversation around it didn't happen.
An Ambiguous Ending That Divided Viewers
The film's conclusion also proved genuinely polarizing. Without spoiling the specifics, Saro's fate is left deliberately ambiguous in the final moments, and reviewers were split on whether that ambiguity felt purposeful or simply unfinished. Some viewers read it as an intentional, open-ended note in keeping with the film's mythic, cyclical themes about death and power. Others were more frustrated, with at least one reviewer explicitly hoping for a sequel specifically to give Saro and Arolake's story the fuller, more satisfying resolution they felt the film denied them the first time around.
A Notable Real-World Snub
No conversation about "Anikulapo" is complete without mentioning the genuine controversy that followed its release: Nigeria's Official Selection Committee chose not to submit the film for the Best International Feature Film category at the 95th Academy Awards, a decision that drew real public disappointment and debate. For a film this widely praised for its cultural specificity, ambition, and box office success, many felt it represented a missed opportunity to put Nollywood in front of a global awards audience in a serious, dedicated way. Not every viewer agreed the film necessarily deserved to win against that year's international field, which included heavyweight competition — one reviewer specifically mentioned "All Quiet on the Western Front" as a benchmark that year — but there was fairly broad consensus that "Anikulapo" at minimum deserved the chance to be formally considered, and that passing it over represented a real missed opportunity to promote African cinema on that particular stage.
A Family Affair, Quietly Woven In
One small but genuinely lovely detail: the film marked the acting debut of Afolayan's own daughter, Eyiyemi Afolayan, who plays a betrayed princess in the story, alongside another family member, Toyin Afolayan, and Afolayan himself in a smaller role. Given how much of Afolayan's broader career has been framed around continuing and building on his own family's deep roots in Nigerian theatre and filmmaking — tracing back to his father's own theatre troupe — folding his daughter's screen debut into a project this personally significant feels like a meaningful continuation of that legacy rather than simple nepotism.
Weighing the Whole Picture
So where does that leave "Anikulapo" overall? I think the fairest read is that this is a film of genuinely exceptional craft — production design, costuming, cultural specificity, and several standout performances that together make it one of the most visually and culturally rich things Nollywood has produced — wrapped around a story that isn't quite as tightly constructed or as mysterious as its ambitions demand. The first half earns every bit of praise it's received. The second half asks you to forgive meandering pacing, some genuinely confusing character motivation around its central romance, and an ending that will either strike you as poetically open-ended or simply unresolved, depending on your patience for ambiguity by the two-hour mark.
It's also, unmistakably, an important film — not because it's flawless, but because of what it represents: a serious, well-resourced, culturally rigorous attempt to bring genuine Yoruba mythology and spiritual tradition to a massive global streaming audience, on its own terms, without flattening it into generic fantasy shorthand. One international reviewer put this particularly well, describing the film as proof that while Hollywood works through its own creative fatigue, Nollywood is sailing ahead — delivering all the elements of a genuine blockbuster, but built from entirely non-Eurocentric, non-white cultural and mythological reference points. That's a genuinely significant achievement regardless of how you feel about the specific plotting choices in the film's back half.
Final Verdict
"Anikulapo" is a film I'd recommend without much hesitation, but with real, honest caveats attached. Watch it for the production design, which is genuinely some of the finest work Nollywood has put on screen; for Kunle Remi and Bimbo Ademoye's performances, which carry real chemistry and range; and for a cultural specificity and spiritual seriousness that few fantasy films from anywhere in the world currently attempt with this much rigor. Just go in prepared for a back half that trades some of that early momentum for pacing that drags and plotting that doesn't always match the mystery its premise promises.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 — a visually stunning, culturally rich Yoruba epic with a genuinely strong first half, let down by uneven pacing, a murky central romance, and a second act that never quite earns the mystery its own premise demands.
0 Comments