The Woman King
Cert 15 | ★★★★✩
Oscar-winner Viola Davis (The Help, Widows) delivers a career-defining turn in this historical epic from director Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Secret Life of Bees, The Old Guard).
The Woman King tells the story of the legendary Agojie, the all-female warriors who protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
Written by Dana Stevens and Maria Bello, the film also stars John Boyega (Attack the Block, the Star Wars franchise), Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel, No Time To Die) and up-and-coming South African actor Thuso Mbedu. Ugandan Sheila Atim and The Book of Boba Fett alum Jordan Bolger also star.
In the West African kingdom of Dahomey in 1823, General Nanisca (Davis), leader of an all female group of warriors liberates Dahomean women who were abducted by slavers from the Oyo Empire.
As tensions rise between King Ghezo (Boyega) of Dahomey and the Oyo tribe, Nanisca begins to train a new generation of warriors to join her army and defeat the slavers.
Women King 2
Viola Davis
Among the newcomers is Nawi (Mbedu), a fearless 19-year-old who was offered by her father to the king after refusing to marry a rich older man.
Nawi befriends Izogie (Lynch), a veteran Agojie fighter who teaches her the ropes. Nawi later falls for Malik (Bolger), a half-Dahomean, half-Brazilian merchant, but is advised to stay away from him. When Nawi is captured by the Oyo and sold to slavery, Nanisca must disobey the king’s orders in order to rescue the young recruit and all those captured alongside her.
While some have accused the film of blatant revisionism and inaccuracies throughout — the female warriors are said to have done their fair share of capturing and selling of slaves to European merchants — this doesn’t take away from Prince-Bythewood’s truly magnificent work here.
Elevated throughout by Polly Morgan’s stunning cinematography and Stevens and Bello intricately devised screenplay,
The Woman King features some incredibly well choreographed fight scenes, but it is Davis who impresses the most.
She carries the story from start to finish with the resilience of a warrior queen and the gravitas of someone who knows what is at stake.
Controversy or historical inaccuracies aside, this is the kind of film that generally never gets made these days. Gina Prince-Bythewood and her team have pulled off a masterpiece. It is truly a spectacle like no other.
