Kemi Adetiba Visuals presents, Sola Sobuwale (Eniola Salami), Charles Charley Boy Oputa (Odudubariba), Richard Mofi Damijo (Reverend Ifeanyi), Paul Samba (Nurudeen Gobir), Titi Kuti (Ade Tiger), Ill Bliss (Odogwu Malay), Aare Akinwande (Akin Lewis), Toni Tones (Young Eniola), Nse Ikpe Itim (Jumoke Randle), Efa Iwara (Dapo Banjo), Bimbo Manuel (Habib Mogaji), Deyemi Okanlawn (Adetola Fashima), Tope Olowaniyan (Aisha Banjo), Brutus Richard (Boxer). Screenwriter/Director, Kemi Adetiba; Executive Producer, Kemi Adetiba; Producers, Remi Adetiba, Kemi Adetiba, Joy Nnamdi-Yusuf; Director of Photography, Kagho Idhebor; Co-Producer, Colette Otusheso © 2021
The Return of a prodigal daughter to Naija. A tall tower of a character that Nollywood has never seen before, never even in the likes of Patience Ozorkwo. No, Patience has nothing on Sola Sobuwale. King of Boys: The Return of The King is a massive story in the annals of Nollywood. Genevieve and Omotola could not dare stand to Aso Rock. Sobuwale does so with a flare of impunity.
Let me put it bluntly here, Eniola is the most nihilistic character Nollywood has ever conjured. She approaches everything with a “god is dead” mentality of the world around her. Sobuwale comes upon the scene when Nollywood has come into itself. Nollywood’s breast is bloom and full like a cocoa pud split into two, and many suitors curry favor with her. In the Nollywood vaudeville days, Patience Ozorkwo, Nkem Owoh, and Sam Loko were the names on everyone’s lips but today, are not suited for Netflix, HBO, and Amazon Prime shows. Nollywood has gone big time. They want severe personalities in serious stories. I can’t figure any talent better than Sobuwale for King Of Boys. She’s a gift to Nollywood.
I have never reviewed episodic movies, not open-ended stories, especially one that lasts over three hours. I have to this time. King of Boys: The Return of The King is not a drama out of this world. Merely, it is the continuation of King of Boys. However, The Return… is about meeting old foes, settling scores, and countering new challenges. Eniola’s existentialist character enthralls me here than in her earlier film. It does show the personality of a person who doesn’t bulge under any constraint. She believes she could die any time, but Eniola must get what nature has for her as long as she lives. Will to power!
I saw Eniola in The King Of Boys when Gobir hurriedly ushered her out of the prison inferno. And she is smuggled out of the country to the United States. She was marginalized as a woman in the manly Lagos political establishment she helped create but unlawfully replaced at the ‘Table.’ Aare in the underworld replaced her with a younger hoodlum, Makanaki (Remilekun ‘Reminisce’ Safaru). She’s back to reclaim where she left off and even more. While away in New York, she helped elect President MuMusa of Nigeria. You bet all cases: fraud, drug, and murder against her are dropped.
The moment Eniola arrives in Lagos, she contends for the gubernatorial candidacy in a fanfare, of course. Her royal chair at the ‘Table’ of King of Boys, is occupied by a rogue leader, Odudubariba (Charles Charley Boy Oputa). Alhaja Salami wants it. It is her right, but she shrewdly has to play a political game around it. I love King of Boys’ character. She’s a spider and clever as hell. See how she twisted the President’s arm to get her the party candidacy. And see how she wraps the most Reverend in blackmail. Eniola wheels and deals and is successful at that.
The campaign heats up, especially between her and the incumbent, Governor Tunde Randle (Lord Frank), married to a Lady Macbeth-like character, Jumoke Randle (Nse Ikpe-Itim). Jumoke will stop at nothing to secure her husband’s second term. At a meeting between Eniola Alhaja Salami and Jumoke, one could sense an innocent girl toying with a dangerous and venomous political giant. Alhaja Salami tells her, in an earnest tone, “By the time I became a high-end gin, you were just a toy for sugar daddies. You are small. Too small for my level.”
Her old enemy, Aare, is not dead yet. He would say to Alhaja Salami, “As long as I have breath, this earth will not contain the two of us.” That was an open challenge to Eniola. Aare got a rogue leader, Odudubariba (Charles Charley Boy Oputa), to take over the kingship of the ‘Boys.’ Eniola has these two enemies to contend with her. Then too, a young journalist, Dapo Banjo (Ifa Iwara), whose father, murdered for “doing the right thing journalistically,” joined the list of haters. He loses sleep over probing an allegation that Eniola had manipulated the election of President MuMusa. What do you know about Eniola, little boy? Or a young kid about to commit career suicide. A letter bomb addressed to him kills his office security which scares the living hell out of him.
Eniola shall fight all these factions one by one to gain the gubernatorial Lagos State seat. At the same time, she secures her place at the table as the Oba of The King of Boys. No condition worries her. She’s as cool as a cucumber even when she survives the most gruesome bomb blast planted in her car. Eniola stands to the highfalutin, Jumoke Randle, who could disrupt Eniola’s well-going campaign in the market. In the end, Eniola disgraces her on national television. True, the earth couldn’t hold Alhaja Salami and Aare together. Aare gets murdered in his hospital bed. As Alhaja Salami’s victory becomes imminent, on one side of the city, she’s on the side of town slaughtering all the elders at the table of King of Boys, including Odudubariba, in a counter-coup. She regains her kingship and becomes the governor all in one night. What a woman!
Another two motivating characters in the story are the spirit of the youthful Eniola, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Eniola tells the Reverend that she’s “old and tired.” But her youthful spirit urges her to avenge her enemies. Eniola’s youthful spirit, “What will you do about the enemies that made you cry? I can give them to you in alphabetical order.” At one point, the spirit yells at Eniola, “Kill the disloyal cockroach and all his family!”
Ade Tiger (Titi Kuti) is another motivating character, loyal to Eniola to the end. Ade Tiger’s father used to be Eniola’s driver and got killed earlier on. Eniola brings up Ade. Now he is more a Consigliere in the King Of Boys saga and the sole protector to Eniola. Tiger takes care of the fortress when Eniola seeks refuge in America. From New York, Eniola transacts business in Nigeria and Lagos through him. Then too, Ade’s loyalty to Eniola secures her place at the Royal Table with the King Of Boys. I enjoy the long scene between Eniola and Ade Tiger, and she shoves a piece of meat in his mouth in the end. It is reassuring for both of them. Look at it as the scene between Micheal Coleon and his father in The Godfather.
Some aspects of this story I need to mention. The dialogue between Eniola and Reverend Ifeanyi goes to caricature a character Frederick Nietzsche could call the “Overman” in his work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. She responds to an invitation by Catholic Reverend Ifeanyi, who wants her to repent her sins and join the church. She, too, wants the Reverend’s support her campaign to be the governor of Lagos State. We are about to see the true character of Eniola in this scene:
Reverend, “So, Alhaja Salami, have you been able to find peace?”
Eniola, “Hm. Peace, I don’t think I have ever felt that in my life. Not even in my sleep. All I know is to kill and destroy and avenge and fight. That’s all I know.”
Reverend (naughtily), “Alhaja Salami.”
Eniola (stern), “Reverend.”
Reverend, “God can give you that peace, and he has told me to guide you to that peace.”
Eniola, “When one wants to change, and their enemies will not let them…In my heart, I want to be a better person. I have all these people around me, yet I still look over my shoulders….What you don’t know about me, I become the target any time I take my eyes off the target. Hm, I’m old. I’m tired. I’m tired of everything.”
Reverend, “Then let God carry your burden for you.”
Eniola, “No matter what I must have done in the past? Reverend, what do I give to get this peace?”
Reverend, “God doesn’t bargain his love…He recognizes those who support the work in the house of God….”
“Ah-ha!, So Reverend, God’s peace is not entirely free.”
In the end, Alhaja Salami subdues Reverend Ifeanyi’s Catholic religion to her whims and caprices, and he endorses her candidacy in a Sunday Service at the church. The existentialist defeats religion.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is about King Of Boys: The Return of The King. Besides its clean and stunning shots, Kemi Adetiba brings to life the one existentialist character Nollywood could always be proud of. What of King of the Boys wardrobe, the one she wore as a disguise to have a meeting with the president? Magnificent they are. As for the dialogue in this mammoth production, for me, its use of proverbs is more like a learning tree. The wisdom of Eniola is buried in her sayings as if she speaks in a tongue. Eniola uses a parable or two in every episode to advance the drama to the next stage in her exploits. “He who throws a stone in the market will hit a relative.” Or better yet, “An elephant cannot turn to rat.” Quite a drama to watch!