Sparrow Productions Ltd. Presents: Adjetey Anang (Kuuku, Lydia Forson (Fremi), Majid Michel( Nii Aryee), Doris Sackitey, Joselyn C Dumas, Abeiku Acquah. Screenplay/Director, Shirley Frimpong Manso; DOP, Bob J.
I guess we still remember the two characters, Damon and Pythias in Greek mythology. Damon was going to be executed in place of his friend Pythias, if Pythias had not returned his person to the tyrant king Dionysious of Syracuse. Pythias returned just when Damon was to be executed on the cross. For their faithfulness in friendship, the tyrant king pardoned Pythias and set both of them free. The end of A Sting In A Tale takes a different turn. They both perish but find sunshine and happiness in hereafter.
You get the picture of A Sting In A Tale.
A Sting in a Tale, is three times a sting in a tale. The writer and director put real sting in this tale. A friend of mine and African Director of this website, David Ajiboye, himself, two times winner, Entertainment Reporter of The Year, first told me about this title and even reported the film won a trophy at the Nollywood Motion Picture Award for original song track. I went on the hunt and found, tucked away in one of our African stores, a dramatic picture of two looser look-alike fellows on the scabbard.
A haggard screenwriter, (Kuuku) Adjetey Anang, drenched in sweat, starving like hell enters a production office and is asked to pitch his story idea, orally. This is what he presents:
Two friends down on their lucks as writers, fresh from college, and have searched for day job everywhere without luck, and are being preyed upon by scammers, four-one-niners, and even lump sum fees pilfered from them to be taken to California. Their luck is so hard that, at one point in time (Nii- Aryee) suggests they ask juju help to change their condition for better. His friend down-play the voodoo idea, but secretly goes solo with it. As their ill-luck would have it, the one and only girlfriend, the main sustenance, Lydia Forson (Frema) dies in the hospital after a sudden illness. For a beautiful story of this nature, I’d rather you go on a hunt and grab your own copy, or buy one off the web, but no more spoilers .
A Sting in a Tale is similar to Figurine (2009), in a sense that, the leads are extremely down on their lucks. The lives of both leads in A Sting…perished not by willful means as the psychopathic behavior of Noah in Figurine, but by share errors. Get load of this simple plot: A friend dies assuming he’s responsible for the death of his girlfriend, but his best friend Nii Aryee thinks it’s all his fault, for, he had taken voodoo into their room while both were asleep, so he gets killed too by accident on his way to the hospital. In the hospital, the mother of the dead girlfriend of Kuuku confesses to have wagered her daughter’s life on abortion.
“A Sting…” is a tale that writes itself, without taking the subject matter seriously but at the same time tells a gripping story, and that’s a style all by itself in narratives of this nature. Both the leads have boyish demeanor, and carry on their roles as if it was their daily lives, flawless, impeccable and in a playful manner. A picture tells a thousand words such as the dramatic paperback picture of the film. Even as I write this review, am conjuring scenes that the creative mind could cook up out of it, especially it is taken from an action scene where the major players are singing and hopping away into the sunshine of afterlife.
Some more admiration for this film is its tailor-made dialogue which never wasted in the air but on the theme of the story. Then two, the hasty movement of the camera, signifies the wariness of the characters themselves: their wants; their hunger; their angst; their longings. The major players in this movie are played not by the first factors you’ll think of casting in a movie, but by actors who’ll prevent you from ever being able to imagine anyone else in their role.
It is no surprise, A Sting in a Tale won trophy at the Nollywood Motion Picture Award for original song track. I went into the shower whistling, ‘be my friend………..’ If I were in a position to rename the title of this movie, I would have called it Tragedy of Errors.
Note: Tragedy of Errors, my title’s already copyrighted in the USA: A joke on you!