Anikulapo Ending Explained: What Happened to Arolake and Saro? How Did He Get Resurrection Power?

Anikulapo is a Nigerian period drama film, released on Netflix. The film is produced and directed by Kunle Afolayan and is said to be inspired by Ifayemi Elebuibon. It tells a beautiful story through the eyes of culture and tradition, set in the pre-colonial era as far back as the 17th century of the Old Oyo Empire, where it follows a man named Saro.

The cast of the film includes Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Sola Sobowale, Kunle Remi, Bimbo Ademoye, Taiwo Hassan, Faithia Balogun, Adebayo Salami, Kareem Adepoju, Moji Olayiwola and Aisha Lawal. It has a runtime of about 2 hours and 22 minutes in total.

Anikulapo Ending Explained

The official description of the film reads, “After an affair with a queen leads to his demise, an eager traveller encounters a mystical bird with the power to give him another life.” As we see in the start the Akala bird has the power to make the dead people alive and when it resurrects Saro to know the reason for his death, we are taken back to the day he comes to the Oyo village.

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He somehow ends up sleeping at Awarun’s doorstep and gets introduced to her as Saro from Gbogan, who is a skilled aso ofi weaver. She offers him work as a clay modeller until he saves up enough money to start his own weaving business. Along with it she also has an intimate affair with him. But another worker warns him that Awarun sleeps with whoever she fancies, and won’t settle down with Saro.

Meanwhile, Saro has already been making plans for his life together with her and soon finds his heart broken, when he witnesses Awarun getting intimate with another man. He feels betrayed but Awarun tells him that she never asked him to love her or promised any future together. Still, to cheer him up she gets him a special aso ofi order right from the village King’s palace.

There he gets a lot of business from the Queens and princesses, but one person catches his eyes the most. Queen Arolake, the youngest and the favourite wife of the King. Little did he know that Queen also fancied him and followed him to the woods on his way back and made out with him. After being mistreated by other Queens and not fond of her relationship with the Old King, she found an embrace in Saro.

She would sneak out every night with the help of her bodyguard to meet up with Saro. On other hand, Awarun also catches the smell of their illicit affair and tells him that he is putting himself in danger and that stays in his mind. That night he questions Arolake, why she is here with him and it leads to them planning to run away.

Arolake goes back to pack her stuff and sneak but Princess Omowunmi is already waiting in her chamber and questions her whereabouts. In reality, the Princess already saw her with Saro, when she was sneaking around his house, as she also fancied his handsome face. But saw Arolake there and tells her mother about her affair.

Arolake still makes her way to Saro but witnesses him getting killed by the King and his men. His body is left in the middle of the forest and Arolake stays with him till morning. Until she sees a mystical black bird flying over their head, she hides in fear and sees that the bird resurrects him but is about to send him back to his death.

However, Arolake chases away the Akala bird away and a black-coloured gourd is left behind, which she picks and keeps with her. By walking through the endless forests and rocky mountains, they encounter a hunter who welcomes them to their house and takes them to the nearby village. Where a child is found dead and putting two and two together, Arolake discovers that the gourd can maybe help.

But instead, she gives it to Saro and tells him that he can get them a new life and status if he brought the child back to life, with the help of the gourd. Thus he puts the gourd on the child’s head and says arise, making the kid sit up. This miracle gives him the name of Anikulapo, one who holds death in his purse and popularity in all over the village.

This way he helps more and more people and becomes an imminent figure. A few years go by and we see that Saro is a completely different man with two new wives. One is Omowon, the help that used to work at his home and he impregnated her, one day. She now has two children with Saro. But Arolake is now mistreated in the same way as in the King’s palace.

Saro is a prideful man who has forgotten what happened in his past and lives a boastful life. This also creates clashes between him and Arolake and he even slaps her one day. Disappointed with her mistreatment she packs her things and leaves his home. Meanwhile, the prince of the village was found dead and Saro was called for help.

But Saro had other plans in mind as he asked for the princess’s hand in exchange for resurrecting the prince. At first, the Kind is enraged at his request but his love for the son makes him agree. Unfortunately, the prince doesn’t rise at the command and multiple tries. When Srao checks the gourd, he finds it empty and we get to know that Arolake emptied all the magical sand out of it.

Once more Saro finds himself begging for his life as he is beaten down by the King’s men, who once again leave him dead in the open. And finally, the Akala birds come to take him to his afterlife.

Anikulapo is now streaming on Netflix.

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