Onyeze Holdings Presents Onye Eze Akirika (Chiwetalu Agu),Larry Coldsweat (Emeka), Nkiru Sylvanus (Ego), Romanus Amata (Okeke), Nonso Diobi (Ugonna). Director Of Photography, Tola Chukwu Agienoji; Producer, Okey Billy Boniface; Executive Producer, Martin Onyemaobi; Director, Amayo Uzo Philips. C2006
I have never had the time to sit through Nollywood movies. Reason is, either most of the themes are watered-down or exploitative, or the movie is just too long for this viewer. I managed to sit through Pastor’s Blood 1 & 2 and t
hese gruesome films just didn’t deliver.
Pastor’s Blood is the story of Akirika, a village voodoo tyrant out to settle a land dispute. In the process to own the property, Akirika uses voodoo to kill his opponent. In the Igbo land, murder by any means is an abomination, and once proven guilty, the accused is hanged. So to cover his act, Akirika goes on a witness killing spree.
For the story’s subplot, screenwriter Michael Oji invented a young evangelical preacher who comes back to his village to spread the gospel, digs out Akirika’s voodoo, and puts an end to the killings. Like Christ who died unjustly, the preacher, in a bizarre twist of fortune, gets embroiled in a case of rape and hanged by the council of elders. Abruptly, the story ends.
Don’t get me wrong if I missed Pastor’s Blood 3 where Akirika may have got his equal reward for evil, but to end the story in such an abrupt manner with no resolution that bridges the two plots, or even an AFTERWARD statement informing viewers what befalls Akirika, is like the filmmakers are glorifying juju justice.
I would want to hope that the producers of this video were planning to bring out Part 3, where the true moral would be displayed. I diligently searched the Internet, but could not find part 3. Now it seems time is running out, since this video first came out around 2006 and this is Sept. 2011.
I feel very much disappointed by the inappropriate end of this movie, I would have thought that using a Christian versus voodoo theme would bring about the unfailing power of God to deliver His own people, rather than glorifying the wickedness of the wicked. The bible says, “Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered” (Proverbs 11:21).
If, however, the purpose of the video is to show that the wicked (represented by Akirika) can go unpunished, while the innocent (represented by the Pastor) suffers and pays with his/her life, that would be a mockery and a slap in the face of Truth and the God of justice. If the purpose is to show that those who depend upon the powers of darkness can have their ways and mock those who warn them of their wicked ways to the end, that would amount to preying upon the truth of God for selfish lucre.