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.

This film is complete propaganda, and tries to rewrite history in a dangerous way. It's about the Oyo tribe, historically one of the largest suppliers of slaves for the slave trade. The king it follows - king Ghezo - is portrayed as wise and fair, but historically he was a cruel and ruthless king. He was even nicknamed "the slaver king" in his time. This guy had a harem of hundreds of slave women, including one whose sole job was to kneel in front of him holding a golden chalice for him to spit into. From here, the historical butchery gets worse.

The unit of women the film follows - the Agojie - did actually exist. They were formed by the king in response to a rival king demanding tribute in the form of female slaves. Once formed, their job was to round up women to enslave and gift to this rival king. The Agojie were literally formed to enslave women.

The Woman King is a perfect example of Hollywood being reckless with history in order to capitalize on social trends and make a profit. Because of the threat of enslavement, name "Agojie" would have been terrifying to any African woman living in Western Africa in the mid-late 1800s. Now Hollywood has decided to rewrite history to glorify these people so they can make a quick buck. This is the equivalent of making a film about the Nazi S. S. in which it's rewritten to make them the heroes trying to save Jews. If anything deserves to be canceled, it's this film.

Terrible movie. Bad acting. There are much better movies to watch. Story line is typical. Could have made this movie better, but they choose a certain message and certain actors and actresses. In the world of action movies and heroes, this one didn't make the grade. Directing was OK and the cinematography wasn't too bad either. But the whole story line and premise of the movie has been done before and isn't interesting. I'm sure there are people that will find it interesting and entertaining, just wasn't me or the 3 others that watched it with me. I certainly hope they don't do a second one.. cause I won't watch it.

The movie should be story of real life events as per description. However nothing that's presented here is real. Not only that but the kingdom of Dahomey's were actually a slave traders and they sold others to slavery. If nothing else this movie is idolizing slave traders.

The movie should be story of real life events as per description. However nothing that's presented here is real. Not only that but the kingdom of Dahomey's were actually a slave traders and they sold others to slavery. If nothing else this movie is idolizing slave traders.

The movie should be story of real life events as per description. However nothing that's presented here is real. Not only that but the kingdom of Dahomey's were actually a slave traders and they sold others to slavery. If nothing else this movie is idolizing slave traders.

Despite the blatant "all black female cast" gimmick the movie showed great potential, and it is different from we usually see in modern action movies. Men in tights and cape, that is. I'd take female savage warriors all day.

But we know by now that in this age we can't have a complete, layered movie. It is simply impossible, cause everything must be watered down, dumbed down and politically innocuous. And that's the movie we got here: the interesting cultural aspects are not enough developed, the geopolitical situation is as thin as possible (and I'm not talking about realism, that is for documentaries, I'm talking about any kind of interesting political reality), and despite the truly great acting, the characters are as rhetorical and melodramatic as in any Superhero movie. And the worst sin of all: an action movie with below average action. Yeah, everything is treated with epicness; but so are Michael Bay movies. The epicness is shallow, there is no complexity, except violence and gore, and directing is confusing. In few words, the trailers are better. Again, like a Superhero movie.

So yeah, this film will be successful because, honestly, not only his premise is as gimmicky as possible, but for once it is actually interesting. But just like the majority of modern action movies, it is all captivating epic surface with no technical or narrative substance. And I'm personally tired of this.