The Woman King

The Woman King (2022) is a movie my wife and I caught in theatres last night. The storyline follows an African kingdom with a new(er) king in 1823 who posses the only female army in Africa. The leader of the female Army has a past that haunts her but the respect of her king, enough to be on his council. She strongly urges him to avoid the slave trade and find alternative methods of riches. Meanwhile, those who do believe strongly in the slave trade look to march on the kingdom and bring them down. A new recruitment class to the female army brings brashness, new ideas to defend the kingdom, and the female leader's ghosts back to the forefront...

This movie is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball) and stars Viola Davis (The Help), Thuso Mbedu (The Underground Railroad), Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die), Sheila Atim (Doctor Strange: In the Mouth of Madness), John Boyega (Star Wars: Episode VII-IV) and Jimmy Odukoya (Mamba's Diamond).

This movie has so much depth and contains a great primary plot and even better sub plots. The writing is remarkable, thorough and very impressive. The character's inner demons are well portrayed as is their struggle to overcome them. The acting is out of this world across the board. You feel for every character; and if anything happens to anyone, you feel personally hurt. The villains were also excellent as is the outcome of each of them. The settings and cinematography is outstanding and there is impressive use of lighting. The action scenes are remarkable and the fight choreography is award winning caliber. My only complaint is an awkward love story that is obviously in here to show maturity and self discovery but I could have done without it.

Overall, this movie has literally everything you'd want in a movie - tremendous action, great villains, self discovery and character triumph. I would strongly, strongly recommend seeing this movie and score it a 10/10. We loved it.

I watched this movie not knowing much about it. So it made me curious. I love history, and I found after some research that I had to agree with History vs Hollywood. "To make a movie that celebrates the Dahomey is a glaring example of how Hollywood likes to morph history, either by way of omission or outright fabrication. If you're going to watch The Woman King, read about the true story of the Kingdom of Dahomey first. Otherwise, take everything you're seeing with a grain of salt." I knew many tribes sold other captured tribes to the European slave traders, but that is putting it mildly with the Mahomey. They were a very cruel tribe that perpetuated it.

When murderers, rapists and slave traders are presented as heroes and liberators, it is disgusting. It is disgusting to see how some directors and actors try to present evil with good. How something terrible is twisted to make it look beautiful. It is as if serial maniacs and murderers who killed hundreds of people in the most brutal ways would be made noble and just heroes. He killed 30 people, dismembered and ate them, oh no no, he was a hero who helps children with cancer. It's disgusting and I want to vomit from such cynicism! The acting is mediocre, even below average. And the appeals of the main characters to visit cinemas to watch this cynical lie. Strong female characters, heroes that the public should know about, good and honest people - all this will be on the screens someday, but not in this film!

Poor execution. No character development. Villans are mostly just waiting to be executed.

The most interesting part of the movie is that it says it is based on historic events but it is not.

Dahomey tribe became powerful over a period of time by selling slaves. In the movie the tribe is fighting slave traders. May be they fight some slave traders and help others. The helping part is left out in the movie.

There are high profile actors in the movie but the script does not give them enough screen time to portray their best. But still we can see their acting brilliance in few scenes. I do not want to get in to details of the scenes.

Stripped of any context, this movie is decent if rather boring and formulaic action epic that's light on the action. Maybe 5 or 6 out of 10. But this movie isn't presented without context: it purports to dramatize a real group of people in a real historical setting. As such it has to have some connection with reality or the immersion will be broken. (And it only has to be a tenuous connection with historical reality to be enjoyable (e.g. Gladiator and Braveheart.)) The Woman King flies completely off the rails into cloud cuckoo land, characterizing the enforcement arm of one of the worst societies of its era (chattel bondage, human sacrifice, reproductive mutilation) as admirable and heroic. It's as goofy, ill-judged and nauseating as if Hollywood presented the homicidal lunatics running around Munich in black shirts circa 1939 as noble warriors who liberated Warsaw.