Niyi Akinmolayan wants Colours of Fire to launch what he calls Afrofusion cinema, a blend of African mythology, high-end visual effects, elaborate costuming, and pan-African fashion. The film commits fully to that vision. Whether it actually works, however, is another question entirely.
The story centres on two warring tribes. The Blues have dominated for generations through fabric-making and sacred magic. When the Reds emerge with their own Colours and methods, panic sets in. Stories spread about a creature terrorising Blue farmers, and fear does what fear always does: it turns neighbours into enemies. The Blues send Akinbode( Uzor Arukwe) to kill whatever monster the Reds are believed to have unleashed.
Akinbode finds Moremi ( Osas Ighodaro)instead, no monster, just a woman and a misunderstood tribe. The hatred fuelling this conflict comes from lies that have been passed down for years, not from any real threat. It’s a workable premise about how propaganda and fear manufacture division, but the film can’t get out of its own way long enough to explore it properly.
Visually, Colours of Fire is striking in places. The costume work stands out immediately, with intricate designs that feel both historical and imagined. The sets have weight, suggesting a lived-in world with depth.
When the film trusts these elements to carry scenes, it succeeds. Unfortunately, Akinmolayan rarely does. He piles on VFX and AI-generated imagery until scenes become cluttered, dust clouds obscure action, and digital effects compete with practical elements instead of complementing them. It’s impressive that Nollywood can execute work at this scale, but not every scene needs to prove it.
Dance appears constantly, positioned as cultural expression and artistic statement. Sometimes it fits. Often, it derails the story entirely. When Akinbode brings Moremi to demonstrate how the Reds create their dye, the film pauses for a dance number that has nothing to do with the dyeing process. The fabric isn’t brought to life through craft or ritual, it’s simply another performance inserted because the film seems to believe every moment must be heightened.
This unfolds while Abifarin watches, a man repeatedly described as brutal in the past but never shown doing anything in the present to justify that reputation. The script tells us who people are without proving it.
Gabriel Afolayan plays Badero as cruel from his first appearance, but the cruelty has no foundation. What shaped him? What changed him? The script doesn’t care to explain. He exists as a villain because the story needs one, and that’s where the character work ends. It’s thin writing that wastes Afolayan’s capacity for nuance.
The dialogue aims for epic but lands as overwrought. Characters announce their emotions and motivations as if narrating themselves. Even within a heightened mythological setting, the lines feel stiff and unnatural. Uzor Arukwe and Osas Ighodaro do the heavy lifting here. Arukwe gives Akinbode a sense of gravity even when stuck delivering proclamations instead of conversations. Ighodaro brings warmth and grounding to Moremi, despite the script repeatedly pushing her toward theatrical gestures. Both performances rise above the material they’re given.
The film also runs too long, and it feels it. The middle drags under the weight of extended dance sequences and visual showcases that stall momentum instead of building it.
Then the ending rushes through its resolutions, as if the film suddenly remembers it needs to conclude. Character arcs that should have developed across the runtime simply stop. Earlier questions go unanswered, leaving the film feeling oddly unfinished despite its length.
There is nudity and violence aimed at mature audiences. Some of it fits the ancient-world aesthetic the film is going for. Some of it feels like boundary-pushing for its own sake, moments included less for meaning than for proof that the film can go there.
What makes Colours of Fire frustrating is how much potential is buried under excess. The mythology has texture. The idea of tribal conflict built on manufactured fear could have been sharp and timely. The performances show commitment. But Akinmolayan keeps layering spectacle on top of spectacle; dance, VFX, dramatic pronouncements until the foundation buckles.
The Afrofusion concept itself has merit, and African cinema benefits from filmmakers willing to combine cultural specificity with technical ambition. Colours of Fire proves that Nollywood can handle the visual and technical side of that equation, delivering imagery unlike anything else currently coming out of the industry. But looking different isn’t enough if the story underneath doesn’t hold.
A film needs more than ambition. It needs characters who make sense, a story that earns its emotional beats, and the discipline to know when restraint would serve better than excess. Colours of Fire has the first two in fragments and completely lacks the third. It’s a film more interested in showing what it can do than focusing on what it should do.
The production design and costume work alone may justify going to the cinemas to watch the film, if you’re curious to see Nollywood stretch its technical muscles, but a tightly plotted story with fully realised characters, isn’t here. Colours of Fire marks an important visual step forward for Nollywood, but it stumbles badly on the fundamentals of storytelling.
Release Date: December 24, 2025
Runtime: Approximately 2 hours
StreamingService: None, Theatrical release
Director: Niyi Akinmolayan
Cast: Uzor Arukwe, Osas Ighodaro, Gabriel Afolayan, Mercy Aigbe, Femi Branch and Ibrahim Chatta.