Chicken Licken’s ‘Wakanda Forever’ spoof gets the thumbs up from Marvel

You’ve seen it, right? It’s been viewed more than 3,762,000 times and even Marvel gave it the thumbs up. It’s the newly released spoof of the Black Panther franchise, Big John Beats Ya’Hunga Forever, from the hit-making studios of Chicken Licken and it’s the true definition of Mzansi magic.

The humorous short film — watch it below — debuted in theatres, on TV and on social media on 11.11.22 at 11.11am. Rumour has it, at some point, South Africans were speaking about it more than the highly anticipated Black Panther sequel, Wakanda Forever (there are Twitter stats to prove it).

Audiences who crave double entendres, cheeky winks to life in Mzansi and impeccable comedic timing will make a meal of this piece and put it on repeat — like a favourite movie or song — to savour the creative juices flowing throughout the 90-second production.

The film impresses right off the bat with its big-budget sets, costumes and sci-fi style. The plot is premised on the idea of an advanced African monarchy with a queen at the helm. She dispatches her troops to bring home the one thing her people don’t have: the mysterious “Big John”. 

Mission accepted, the queen’s warriors jet off to the land of “Souda”, which is where the fun really starts as the filmmakers pack in the punchlines, centred largely on the quirks of SA. Before they can stop him, an opportunistic window washer tackles the spaceship’s windscreen with a squeegee; a sassy traffic officer considers giving them a fine for parking illegally until she really looks at the vehicle, “bathong!”

What makes this short film so highly enjoyable is that its creators are clearly in on South Africans’ ability to create inside jokes about national and international hits and misses. In one scene, the warriors are lost, so they ask for directions from a local who speaks isiXhosa rather than the Hollywood-style “X-hosa” they were expecting.

Joe Public, the brains behind the hilarious production, created a jam-packed microfilm, telling an enthralling story in just 90 seconds. Brought to you by Romance Films and directed by the renowned Grey Gray (the Quentin Tarantino of Mzansi), the piece aims to showcase SA — and by extension Africa — to the rest of the world in a captivating new light. With impeccable visual effects by BlackGinger and an incredible film score by Pressure Cooker Studios, this film displays world-class production value right from our backyard.

Dazzling doeks on fleek, an intelligent and competent queen and technologically advanced hardware show that Africa is a force to be reckoned with. Representation is paramount in the film, as not only different races are portrayed, but various social classes as well, ranging from street hustlers and middle-class workers to characters clad in suits, showing a reality that is the rainbow nation. It’s refreshing to watch African architecture, history and heritage being portrayed in such an engagingly humorous manner.

This article was paid for by Chicken Licken.