The Nollywood Forever Movie Review Blog

My Darling Princess

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My Darling Princess ~ 2009
Story – Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi
Screenplay – Tai Emeka Obasi
Director – Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi (Mr Hollywood)

Starring:
Muna Obiekwe – Ikeobi
Stephanie Okereke – Princess Funmi
Enebeli Elebuwa – Oba
Eucharia Anunobi – Ijeoma
Omar Sheriff Captain – BJ
Vicky Zugah – Lola
Kelvin Books – Segun
Ngozi Nwosu – Bola
Mercy Obi – Waitress
Kelvin Ikeduba – King’s thug
Richard Amaechi – Dr
Obasi Nancy – Nurse
Prince Kelly – Inspector
Okey Onyewuenyi – Policeman
Dimeji Ishola – Waiter
Julias Emam – Oba Gateman

Themes:
Tribalism
Royalty
Tradition

My Rating 40%

The Yoruban Princess of Ijekuta and an Ibo boy fall in love. In fact it is love at first sight. Her father will not allow her to marry a man from any other tribe as she will one day become Queen and her husband will become King. In his mind accepting a stranger as his daughter’s husband will taint their lineage,

“Our custom does not allow for people to bring foreigners to join with royal blood in our own land.”

For this reason the relationship starts off a secret one and when both parents find out about it they are vehemently against it. Ike’s mother brands the princess, “A prostitute” for rendez-vousing with her son in a hotel room, declaring,

“Of all the girls in lagos; you entangle with a Yoruba girl,”

and the King brands Ikeobi as “useless” and “unserious” for the same reasons. The older generation on both sides have deeply ingrained prejudices. Their love becomes one big battle to fight against their respective families.

**************SPOILERS**************

The princess is feeling lonely and befriends one of her maids to make her sole confidant. Vicky Zugah’s entire performance is kind of lifeless and why oh why is a maid wearing fake lashes? Er hello… This ain’t no beauty pageant Vicky. I wonder if she just came on set with them or she was instructed to wear them. Either way it was ridiculous.

Ike is a musician and has a performance, where he needs to perform a duet, why? We don’t know? This whole musician storyline was pointless and mostly nonsensical, bar the comic moments when Ike and his friend get some girls in to audition. They are all dreadful to the point where you will howl with laughter. The funniest is when a tone deaf girl attempts to sing Beyonce’s Irreplaceable with the enthusiasm of a corpse. Ike models himself on Simon Cowell, coming out with the comic put downs at rapid pace.

There were a few nice touches very far and few between and excellent performances from both Enebeli Elebuwa and Eucharia Anunobi. I particularly liked the scene where Enebeli arrives at Eucharia’s home to warn her to warn her son to stay away from his daughter. Many sterotypes that Ibos hold about Yorubas and vice versa were exposed via insults. As someone who is not too aware of all the stereotypes clouding each tribe I found this quite informative. It seems like Yorubas cling onto tradition more than Ibos, whereas Ibos are more interested in making money and look down on Yorubas that hang on to Royal Kingdoms as lazy and not forward thinking enough to garner wealth for themselves. Eucharia’s character makes fun of the king by putting him alongside other monarchs who are internationally recognised,

“Duke of Edinburgh!”
“Sheikh of Saudi Arabia!”

This scene and the audition scenes were the best in the whole movie. Most of the rest was a drag.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend this movie. The musician storyline was pointless, befriending the maid was pointless and in fact watching it was pretty much pointless too. The movie was boring and poorly though out. This storyline has been rehashed over and over again so if one is going to go into it again there has to be a twist, or something that makes it stand out above all the other parents won’t let kid marry because of social class/ status/ wealth/ tribe religion stories. Yes it did highlight tribalism which is a very important issue, but on a grand scale this one failed. Don’t bother!

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