But she must grow out of her arrogance, which is a reflection of Nanisca's own. Nawi is a teenager who refuses to be married off to a middle-aged man who slaps her across the face at their first meeting, so her parents give her as a gift to the king, who allows her to become a warrior. Her role is nearly as important as Davis's and her character's trajectory is the most dramatic. Thuso Mbedu, such a discovery as Cora in The Underground Railroad (2021), is poignant and natural as Nawi. Lashana Lynch is Izogie, who goes into battle with a gleeful smile and fingernails sharpened to points, the better to poke an enemy's eyes out. She is the film's soul, but she shares attention with several other distinctive characters. Its ruler, King Ghezo (John Boyega, with regal bearing), is inexperienced but smart enough to take some counsel from Nanisca. Every part of it is sharply detailed, from Nanisca's hair in a curly Mohawk, to the decorative handles of the machetes and the small shells the women wear on their battle gear and braid into their hair. What the films do share is a reverence for African culture.Īfter The Woman King's opening battle against the Oyo, a tribe that captures other Africans to be sold as slaves, Prince-Bythewood takes us into the world of Dahomey. But The Woman King, without Marvel superpowers, has a more serious tone and connection to history. The Agojie also inspired the fictional Dora Milaje warriors in 2018's Black Panther, which this new film inevitably brings to mind. The Agojie, the women's army guarding the king, was famous for its physical strength and ferocity. Set in 1823, the story draws on the history of Dahomey, the real West African kingdom that existed from the 17th-19th Centuries in what is now Benin. Blonde: A 'hellish take on the Marilyn myth'
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Known for the character-driven Love and Basketball (2000) and the action movie The Old Guard (2020), Prince-Bythewood blends the strengths of both films to spectacular effect in The Woman King.
Gina Prince-Bythewood doesn't make a wrong move as she orchestrates all the elements of this action-filled historical epic, filled with vivid characters and cultural resonance. It takes nothing away from Davis's typically fierce performance, as a fictional 19th-Century African general named Nanisca, that the film's true star is its director. At the start of The Woman King, Viola Davis (Nanisca) lets out a war whoop that sends her all-female army into battle, mercilessly wielding spears and machetes.
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