The lore of Madam Koi Koi is an ever mutating one. First gaining root in minds during secondary school, the story evolves in detail with every telling. Sometimes she is a woman murdered by students, other times she’s specifically wearing a single shoe to elicit the onomatopoeic koi koi. But in all, these two things remain constant in every telling: she is a woman out for revenge and she wears a red dress. This constant retelling has taken root in recent Nollywood with Prime Video’s Ms Kanyin being another version of this tale after Netflix’s hamfisted 2023 two-part Madam Koi Koi and Director Pink’s promising 2021 short film Lady Koi Koi (The Arrival).
Directed by Ikechuckwu Jerry Ossai, Ms Kanyin follows Amara (Temi Otedola), an ambitious student of Sterling College, and her group of friends who unleash the vengeful spirit of Madam Koi Koi after an act of desperation. This leads to dire consequences for the students that must be stopped before it’s too late. More teen drama than supernatural horror, the tones of Ms Kanyin grate at each other to create an uneven and sometimes nostalgic film.
This nostalgia is curated by the film’s attempt at recreating the classic Nigerian boarding school experience. The uniforms, the cliques, the overbearing prefects and the shared dining experience. It’s often successful, grounding you mostly in your own memories than the film’s environment, but then takes you out with details like Uti (Natse Jemide) being a record-breaking swimmer with no further context—he’s always the only one in that pool.
The story continues with and is motivated by Amara’s desperate pursuit of better French grades which puts her in close orbit with Ms Kanyin, the posh French teacher. This motivation is understandable for a teen drama which the first half of this film is, but it loses heft under the scrutiny of the second half of the film. Amara recruits her friends for the mission to save her grades by stealing the exam questions from Ms Kanyin and from there, the bloody spiral begins.
The killings start, but the performances remain lifeless despite the potential of the characters to be interesting. Michelle Dede (Love and Life) as Ms Kanyin wears the exhaustion of teaching, almost as if she is jaded by the idea of teaching being a higher calling. This is never moved beyond the surface and so her revenge rampage is an empty inconsistent husk. The friend group that sends her over the edge led by Amara is never cohesive and that disconnection hints at something lurking beneath their relationship. You wonder how they became friends, it’s even alluded to by Chisom at some point, but it’s these crumbs that are expected to sustain the audience.
These gaps are not helped by the mediocre acting that fill the film. Temi Otedola (The Man for The Job) as Amara is singular, her voice never finds the dynamism of the character and the rest of the cast follows her lead. Natse (Far From Home) as Uti is as bad as his swimming—a lot of flailing with no direction, Kanaga Jr (Ajosepo) as Finditae is handsome and hollow, Aduke Shittabey as Fiona is British—honestly, that’s the best way I can describe it; and Damilola Bolarinde as Lami coasts by on the bare minimum. The standout is Toluwani George (WURA) as Chisom who is dealt the same narrative fate as Ms Kanyin. She’s pulling together scraps to create a sadness with her character we never know more about.
The chassis of the film trudges on with direction that suits the first hour better than the second. Foreboding and tension are never built except a throwaway scare in the first part, so the legend of Ms Koi Koi takes a backseat to the rest of the film. To its credit, it is not shy with the gore with the kill that occurs in the toilet, a highlight of the film, something its Netflix counterpart never did. After that though, the killings find a sameness that could have been rescued by more practical effects and less CGI.
Ms Kanyin climaxes in a kind of staggered manner. As if each character was waiting for their cue, it never flowed and the direction and editing didn’t help give it the terse feel it required. With a story by Tamara Annie, Tobe Otuogbodor, Jeffery Musa David and Jerry Ossai, Ms Kanyin lack of cohesion seems to stem from a simple story convoluted by many writers. It struggles to meld the recklessness of youth with the horror of the Madam Koi Koi lore. Never tense, rarely frightening, the film hopes our knowledge of the lore might be enough to carry it to an effective end. Its entry into Nemsia Studios’ filmography expands their diverse genre exploration but doesn’t reach the heights of their recent releases like audience-loved Breath of Life and critically-acclaimed With Difficulty Comes Ease.
There is an irresistible urge to place Ms Kanyin somewhere in the small but growing gallery of Madam Koi Koi film versions and compare it with its Netflix counterpart. But for comparison to occur there must be some form of success. Sadly, we haven’t gotten any of that yet, so we continue to wait with bated breath for the next Madam Koi Koi and hopefully this time she doesn’t speak French.
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Side Musings
- The scene where Kanaga Jr. stood up to yell at the students to shut up in the dining hall so Temi could give her announcement was very cute.
- The white masks they wore to break into Ms Kanyin’s house made me burst into laughter. What in the KKK was going on?
- Temi speaking French as her last words to Madam Koi Koi was so unserious in a supposed serious moment.
- Natse diving into that pool shattered whatever belief I had that he was a record holding swimmer.
- Up next, let’s make a romcom for Temi where she’s also speaking French. Let’s complete the Temi French cinematic universe.
