London premiere of Obi Emenloye's Onye Ozi Movie Premiere

The much talked about film Onye Ozi premiered at the Lighthouse in Camberwell on Friday 18th October 2013. The cast of the movie included Oke Bakassi, Ngozi Iswebike, Stephen Moriaty, Anthony Aclet, Adesua Atuanya & D'Kachi Obi-Emenlonye. The movie was Directed and produced by Obi Emenloye and co produced by Ngozi Ideh.  

People started coming into Lighthouse anticipating to watch a good movie and some of those that attended included those in the Nollywood UK industry, top film, television & music stars, those in the world of African fashion, sports personalities,  businessmen and women, members of the press and of course Nollywood UK lovers and supporters. Generally, the turn out was very impressive. The premiere started of with with a stand up comedy show, music performances and clips from a short film. The expectation of the crowd had built up and then one of the 2 comperes for the night introduced the movie.

Onye Ozi subtitled the messenger is a movie in Ibo language one of the three primary languages in Nigeria but with subtitles in English. Briefly, the movie was about this Graduate from Nigeria (played by Oke Bakassi who arrived in the United Kingdom to meet up with his heart throb (Ngozi Iswebike). On arrival, he discovered that she had 2 children abd while they were celebrating, tragedy struck, Someone was killed and gave him his final wishes before passing on, slipping something into his hands. The bottom line was that this man more or less haunted him until he actually kept his promise and did what he promised the dying man. I leave the rest of the movie to those of you that would watch it later.

To me, there was an excellent script with a bit of suspense, The good thing is that this is the first indigenous Ibo film I know of, at least in the UK that all the cast including the British cast had to speak in Ibo. The dilemma was that how would none Ibo people follow the movie. I for one do not speak or understand Ibo. However, there was much laughter in the room and I know that none Nigerians talk not of Ibos attended the movie. That meant something was right and that was the sub-titles. I commend the lady that did the sub-titles. I spoke to people after the movie especially indigenous Nigerian who watch and do not watch Nollywood and the comments that came out were that the subtitles were to the point and that unlike most Nigerian movies with sub-titles, there were no grammatical errors. For me a non Ibo speaker to understand the movie that someone asked me if I understood or spoke Ibo, that is a positive.

I commend the Director for his choice of the cast as the mixture of Ibo speakers, non Ibo speakers, British actors and children all speaking Ibo and the entirety of the movie shot in the UK, there was a balance. All the actors from Oke Bakassi, to Ngozi, to the British actors especially the one that played TJ, the man that was killed sent home the message of the film perfectly.

The picture quality was excellent and watching the trailer of the movie and the making of the movie prior to actually watching the movie itself, with the amount of work and effort put in the movie, I was not surprised. In the making of the movie, we saw that 60 odd cameras were used to capture a scene. That showed the heartbeat of the Director and Producers of the movie.

Having said all the good, I must as a Nollywood critic  who has promised to be unbiased and always be objective make the following comment. At the beginning of the movie, there were echos in the sound and as such people seemed to be muffling and background sound actually over shadowed the voices of the cast. However, this was only brief and the sound improved so much that even when someone was running, you could hear the sound of his shoes. 

The overall experience was brilliant and usually before writing my reviews, I speak to a few people in industry and people who attend premieres. One of the comments I got from a guest was that she does not watch Nollywood premieres but because of this movie, she would shout on roof tops that people should go out and watch Nollywood Movies. From those I spoke to, the views were unanimous.

I would have given this movie the perfect 10, which is 5 star because it deserves it all round, but that issue of sound in the beginning of the movie cannot be overlooked. Therefore I rate the movie 9.5. The big question is would I recommend people to watch this movie. The answer is definitely yes. I have not told you half of the story. On whatever platform the movie would be showing, please watch it. I commend Obi and his team for a job well done!!

Watch the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlGtW591Uuk