Kenya's film industry is finally getting the Netflix treatment, expanding the streaming giant's reach across Africa. The first original series from Africa to debut on Netflix was Queen Sono, a South African production that premiered in 2020. Since then, other South African titles have appeared on the streaming service, including Blood and Water, Kings of Jo'burg, and Jiva.
Last year, Kemi Adetiba's King of Boys: The Return of the King premiered on the platform after a long moment of fan anticipation and was the talk of the town for a while. Blood Sisters pulled a similar stunt about two months ago when it launched to record-breaking success. None of them garnered much critical acclaim, however, with more than a few people decrying the inauthentic storylines, messy characterization, and unnecessarily long runtime. Does Country Queen, the first Netflix original series in Kenya, manage to circumvent these problems or does it follow the same path?
Stars: Melissa Kiplagat, Melvin Alusa, Nini Wacera
The story follows Akisa (Melissa Kiplagat), a young woman who runs an event planning business in Nairobi. She receives information about her father's illness and has to return to her town, a place that seems to hold nothing for her but trauma and regret. Her relationship with her family is strained, to say the least. In the opening scene, we see her father, Mwalimu (Raymond Ofula), collapse after witnessing a disturbing sight: her free-range chickens are all dead, their lifeless bodies dotting the expanse of land. The reason behind the mass death of Mwalimu's poultry remains a mystery to the characters at the end of the series, but not to the audience. We have been given enough clues to piece together what is happening. The opening credits show real-life examples of the events that occur in this story, which is a commendable choice, rather than the usual method of informing the audience by simply displaying "inspired by true events" in bold.
When Akisa arrives in town, things are already heating up around her. Kyalo (Melvin Alusa), her first love, has a new girlfriend and some tension is brewing there. Her mother doesn't want her near her. Her uncles degrade her every chance they get and Eco Rock is already in the early stages of her plan. The series features intriguing characters whose lives (past, present, and future) intertwine in ways that create an exciting story. The first episode of Country Queen introduces us to these characters and the complex world they inhabit. A world that, like the series, does not offer easy answers; a morally gray landscape filled with sacrifices and difficult decisions. If the first episode represents the arrangement of the chess pieces on the board, then the second episode is where they start to move. The ending is a bit mediocre; However, why are you still waiting for that checkmate! moment, for that scene or sequence in which the story has been building, and it never arrives.
A threatening piece on the board is Eco Rock, a mining company, and its CEO, Vivienne Sibala (Nini Wacera), a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. When the story begins, Eco Rock is already mining for gold in the town of Tsilanga. Their long-term goal is to obtain all the land from the entire community, either by force or fraud, and build an open pit mine, a decision that will surely earn them more gold and precious minerals, which in turn will give more money.
Standing up against the company's exploitative practices (including, but not limited to, the illegal use of children as slave labor in the mines) is Kyalo, also a Tsilanga native, who wants to unite people against Eco Rock. and drive the company off their land. It is the antithesis of Eco Rock. Where the company is ruthless to the land and its inhabitants, interested only in how much money they can get out of both, Kyalo is sweet. Like his ancestors, he works the land. He has a garden in his backyard that he tends to regularly despite the fact that the company has almost illegally acquired all the land in Tsilanga. He is at odds with his father and his brother, who work for Eco Rock, helping the company obtain land from villagers at low cost.
Country Queen is extremely light, moving from story to story, never letting certain big scenes or emotional beats land. This is to be expected in a story that juggles various plot threads, but even the main plot falls flat. A story like this should aim to take its audience's breath away, not hit them like a warm afternoon breeze.
Watch Country Queen 2022 Tv Series Trailer
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