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.

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.

"It's true and real" a direct quote from one of the cast members of this film.

Why don't we do some changing of history too.

The British Stopped dahome from doing the slave trade.

Oh wait no that's true.

Let's try again The women warriors of Dahome stopped the slave trade

No that isn't true Well that's what this movie seems to think happened.

It feels like a history teacher who hates white people made this movie, lying, changing, history.

Here is a summary of what actually happened.

In 1851-1852, the British imposed a naval blockade on the ports of Dahomey in order to force them to end the slave trade.

Ah so it wasn't the women warriors who stopped it I see..

This movie is a complete reimagining of history.

Once again trying to convince people that history I somehow subjective. The tribe this movie is based on were slavery. They were not the heros or the victims. They murdered, enslaved, and sold other Africans at every chance they could get.

Not to mention that they lost a war where the other side took little to no casualties.

This movie belongs in the fantasy section since the only people who could possibly believe it was remotely true are living in a fantasy.

Stop trying to re-write history and gaslight everyone who appreciates history for what it is.

The movie is rewriting the history in a very untrue and manipulative way. The Dahomi weren't so "flower power" as this movie wants to portray them.

They were actually the ones selling African slaves and being the bad guys of the story.

They are responsible for the 20% of the African slavery worldwide.

Fun fact the original casting for the protagonist quit the movie after traveling to Africa and learning from locals about the crimes of the Dahomi.

Such a shame though. The actors is this movie are so good and so pleasant to watch. The story is very appealing and overall very good.

But unfortunately it's not based at all on true events.