Added to the heat all over the social media, orisaigbokhaevbolo scriptwriter and actor shares his experience with Nnaji, he wrote
‘A few years ago I interviewed Genevieve Nnaji for the Africa Report. One of the questions I asked concerned her decision to take a small role in “Half of a Yellow Sun” when everyone else thought she should have played Olanna, the lead role that went to Thandie Newton. Very calmly, she told me she had personal reasons for taking part in the Biyi Bandele film.
Lionheart, Nnaji’s second film behind the camera, but her first as a director, shows that whatever those reasons were, they matter to her still. The new film is a crowd-pleaser as well as an advertisement for Igbo industry.
When it starts, a group of area boys are protesting at the premises of Lionheart, a transport company in eastern Nigeria. The founder’s daughter, Adaeze Obiagu (Nnaji), comes out and resolves the issue. The idea is to establish the character’s cool competence. The execution, though, is a tad awkward.
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Not long after, her father, Ernest Obiagu (Pete Edochie), has to take his hands off the business, which is in trouble, and although Adaeze believes she is the natural successor, an uncle is named head instead. The uncle is played by Nkem Owoh, who, one has to guess, was happy to be asked by Nnaji. He plays himself as he always does, with cunning and comic charm, but, if anyone was really thinking, his character’s eccentric nature should do nothing for the troubled company. He seems to only make jokes and moves that get him in jail—almost like he is back in the 1990s playing the drunk in Ikuku rather than the acting CEO of a company. I had a thought: If this is the kind of decisions Ernest Obiagu routinely takes, it is little wonder that his company is in trouble. Still, Adaeze has to work with the man to rescue the company from the hands of rival businessman Igwe Pascal (played with evil panache by Kanayo O Kanayo, possibly the only Old Nollywood actor who has gotten better at acting). Together they have to try to save Lionheart, even if it takes them to other parts of the country.
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