The Woman King

The Woman King · Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood · Written by Maria Bello and Dana Stevens · Starring Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu and John Boyega · Classification ...

While The Woman King is a welcome way of engaging with alternative histories, it also feels inherently at odds with the commensurate politics of the studio action-epic. The most important one is that of Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), a young woman who, after challenging the latest in a long line of arranged husbands, is left at the Dahomey palace gates by her adoptive father as an offering for King Ghezo (John Boyega). It is this complicity in the enslavement of Black Africans that acts as a through-line in The Woman King’s narrative, with Nanisca’s advocacy for a more just reality providing much of the film’s moral backbone.

From left, John Boyega, Thuso Mbedu, Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, and. TIFF. 'The Woman King' is Gina ...

“The intent of this film (is) certainly to celebrate these women, celebrate the kingdom (of Africa), the beauty, the fact that there were kings and queens.” The film draws from 1800s West Africa, adopting its mannerisms, cultural practices (both the good and bad), and is in part a reflection of a part of African origin. “The Woman King” has been accused of glamorizing the truth. “From the outset, I knew what I wanted the cast to look like. The movie was shot in South Africa and parts of Ghana (location was based on crew availability and space) and, she explained, actors felt connected to their ancestors as they walked on African soil. “This was the toughest shoot of my career. Such as not needing to explain how a Black woman talks or reacts, not feeling like she was taking up space and the ability to arrive on set relaxed because there would be Black people leading departments (such as the film’s Black head of hair department and Black crew members). Agojie women are told to “kill” their tears in the film, but Davis (like Nanisca) still carried sorrow. It was a “fight,” she says, as Hollywood could not see the value in Black stories. “The Woman King” fictionalizes the true story of the Dahomey Kingdom in West Africa — the present-day region of southern Benin. The cast includes Davis (Nanisca, the army general), Lashana Lynch (Izogie, a warrior), Thuso Mbedu (who plays Nawi, a new warrior), Sheila Atim (Amenza, a warrior and Nanisca’s adviser) and John Boyega (King Ghezo). And the more I read and started to see, not only are we telling the story we’ve never heard but also there are these beautiful relationships and personal stories weaved within it so organically, ” Prince-Bythewood said.

A new film stars Viola Davis as the leader of the Agojie, the all-woman army of the African kingdom of Dahomey.

But Agojie traditions [continued](https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180826-the-legend-of-benins-fearless-female-warriors) long after Dahomey’s fall, with descendants of the warrior women [sharing stories](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/26/amazons-dahomey-benin/) about their formidable ancestors and participating in religious rituals. … It is really strange to see women so well led, so well disciplined.” Though sources disagree on the number of women warriors who fought in the [Second Franco-Dahomean War](https://www.historynet.com/french-colonial-conquest-of-dahomey-in-1892/), Alpern cites 1,200 to 2,500 as a likely range. [History.com](https://www.history.com/news/african-female-warriors), Wantchekon emphasizes the central role played by women in Dahomean society. Upon seeing Nanisca’s body, Bayol [wrote](https://archive.org/details/amazonsofblacksp0000alpe/page/194/mode/1up?q=%22with+cowries%22) that a “cleaver, its curved blade engraved with fetish symbols, was attached to her left wrist by a small cord, and her right hand was clenched round the barrel of her carbine covered with cowries.” As Larsen articulates, the existence—and dominance—of Dahomey’s women warriors upset the French’s “understanding of gender roles and what women were supposed to do” in a “civilized” society. [likely stems](https://www.slashfilm.com/995302/how-the-success-of-black-panther-led-to-the-making-of-the-woman-king/) from the blockbuster [success](https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/23/17028826/black-panther-wakanda-culture-marvel) of 2018’s [Black Panther](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-black-panther-changed-comics-forever-180976521/), which testified to the demand for entertainment created by and featuring Black creatives. Because they were married to the king, they were restricted from having sex with other men, although the degree to which this celibacy was enforced is [subject to debate](https://archive.org/details/amazonsofblacksp0000alpe/page/40/mode/1up?q=celibacy). [1729](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/). Through these actions, the Agoije established Dahomey’s preeminence over neighboring kingdoms and became known by European visitors as “ [Amazons](https://amzn.to/3BIPaaZ)” due to their similarities to the warrior women of [Greek myth](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/amazon-women-there-any-truth-behind-myth-180950188/). [Dahomey](https://www.britannica.com/place/Dahomey-historical-kingdom-Africa) boasted an army so fierce that its enemies spoke of its “ [prodigious bravery](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/).” This [6,000](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/)-strong force, known as the Agojie, raided villages under cover of darkness, took captives and slashed off resisters’ heads to return to their king as trophies of war. magazine](https://msmagazine.com/2022/08/30/the-woman-king-review-africa-amazons-dahomey/). They are still under the patriarchy of the king, and they are still players in the slave trade.”

"The Woman King" is inspired by 19th-century female warriors in an African kingdom and creates a rousing action vehicle, augmented by plenty of melodrama.

Somehow, the film manages to feel like a throwback to the action movies of old while featuring people who were seldom allowed to occupy prominent roles back then. With its heavily female and almost entirely Black cast, the movie could give a welcome boost to other projects that have historically struggled in terms of studio support. Nanisca worries that her warriors "do not know an evil is coming," a tease for the pending battle against the Oyo. Shot in South Africa, the film helps bridge some of the expository gap by opening with a brutal action sequence, demonstrating just how fierce Nanisca and her loyal soldiers can be. (The script is by Dana Stevens, who shares story credit with actor Maria Bello.) Nanisca, meanwhile, urges the king to depart from his participation in the slave trade, arguing that selling captured foes to the Europeans has created "a dark circle" as they increasingly intrude upon their lands.

The director joined Viola Davis and her co-stars in intense training to play the real-life female Agojie warriors.

This is on top of the three hours they were doing with the trainers, on top of the hour and a half with [Gabriela Mclain] in the morning doing weights, on top of the running. GPB: As a director, I write what I want to see, and I direct what I want to see. Certainly the acceptance of that, you can absolutely draw a line to The Woman King and these women celebrating their athleticism and their skill and their athletic bodies and also finding the great beauty in all of that. They came into that room and saw the intensity that she was bringing and they were like, “Oh, that’s what we’re doing.” It just changed the energy. It’s funny, too, because I literally said, “You’re going to go online and you’re going to find these videos of actors who have trained before, and it’s cut to music and it seems really cool and it’s not. And it was like connecting the dots: getting a paragraph of one person describing the way that they dressed or a paragraph in another tome that talks about the cowry shells being in the hair. But the same fight I had when I had $7 million is the same fight I have at a $70 million budget. And the work that he did to give the film, those musical numbers that were organic to the story, set within the story, was exciting. We have the same mentality, of work ethic and integrity and authenticity and wanting to get this right. And then the actors had to learn that too. And then the script came and within five pages I was like, “Oh, shoot, this is my next movie.” I just felt like it was something I had to do. [The Woman King](https://www.avclub.com/film/reviews/the-woman-king-2022) is enough to show that Viola Davis and her co-stars did the kind of fight training you can’t fake.

Viola Davis should have been leading armies this whole time.

It’s also a very Hollywood version of what may have happened as they prepare to go up against the powerful Oyo empire, with some convenient reveals, a love interest, a slightly idealized king figure (in John Boyega) and an old score someone needs to settle. But unlike some recent cinematic depictions of armies not entirely comprised of men, they didn’t have to look to fantasy or the comic books to make “The Woman King” — just a history that isn’t widely taught. It’s 1823 and there is rape and rampant hatred of women. [The Woman King](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RDaPV_rJ1Y&utm_source=albertaprimetimes.com&utm_campaign=albertaprimetimes.com%3A%20outbound&utm_medium=referral),” the always regal Oscar-winner is a mass of muscle, battle wounds and world weariness as General Nanisca, the head of the Agojie, an all-female unit of warriors who protected the West African Kingdom of Dohemy in the 19th century. The world of the “The Woman King” is no paradise though. Terence Blanchard lends a fittingly rousing score to the action, which, though brutal, is carefully constructed to keep that superhero PG-13 rating.

The breathtaking and action-packed historical epic The Woman King is one of 2022's best films. Based on a true story, director Gina Prince-Bythewood throws ...

Prince-Bythewood: It started with precisely what you said, making people see the value in this story, in this cast, in these characters, and it's a tough thing to have to fight and prove that people that look like you have value. I got the gig in the room, and then I had to walk to my car. I also got a sense of some of the movies of the 70s with strong black women front and center, like Foxy Brown. I had actors doing all their own fighting, all their own stunts, face to face and spitting and grappling and sweating; you can't wear masks in that situation. I was like, 'How are we going to get that done?' You figure it out, and you do it. That said, we found these incredible journals written by these two men who went to the kingdom and their descriptions of the palace, the costume, the people, and the environment, and that's what I wanted to put up on the screen. I sat in my car, and it was like, 'Damn, now I've actually got to come through.' That's where the fear sets in, but that fear is good because it drives me and pushes me to put in the work I need to prove that everything I said in that room I could deliver on. Those details were vital to me, the actors, and the department heads who took the authenticity seriously. That seemed to be important across the board, top to bottom. Some were very offensive in the way they were written because of the lens they were looking through. Honestly, I think it started with the studio not realizing the bigness of this film, the epic nature of it, not only in the scope of it but also in the emotion. We felt it on set, but you never know until you start to put it together, but the reaction has been pretty incredible.

The Woman King starring Viola Davis presents an alternative history that frames the warriors protecting Dahomey and its slave trade as heroes.

Lashana Lynch was kind of being positioned as this great new Black female [star] because of her supporting role in Captain Marvel and her supporting role in the Bond movie where she’s the new 007. The real Lashana Lynch kind of jumped out in this movie to me. That’s also an act of colonization, being able to kind of pick and choose a la carte what it is that you want to be able to say. And I’m going to opt to be the hunter.” And obviously that comes with a price. Thinking about the choice of being able to say, “okay, yes, we did what we needed to do, but we are also going to push the narrative that there were Africans that fought for that change.”. This particular film, I feel opens up a massive conversation that has not happened among amongst those of the Afro-diaspora and those on the outside looking in. They’re not seeing the conditions that people are going to be going to, what life was going to be like once they had landed in the Americas. I didn’t even know that the movie was actually going to tackle that. They’re just like, “either I’m going to be the hunted or the hunter. And if you don’t want to be the hunted, then you have to make sure that you are doing everything you can possible to be the hunter. But then I discovered that the Kingdom of Dahomey was built on selling slaves to Europeans. These are the heroes of this movie??!!” But of course, then we watched the movie.

With an outstanding cast of characters and a truly epic sale, The Woman King is glorious and powerful.

With an outstanding cast of characters and a truly epic sale, The Woman King is glorious and powerful. And while she was left out of the fights in movies like The Suicide Squad, Davis is absolutely badass and shows that she’s an action star in her own right. On top of leading the cast as General Nanisca, Viola Davis is also a significant behind-the-scenes contributor to The Woman King. As the leader of the Agojie, she has the most action sequences out of anyone in the film. Of course, it’s impossible to speak about The Woman King without talking about the force of nature that is Viola Davis. The Oscar, Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress is known for bringing a fierce emotionality to her performances, and that was certainly the case as General Nanisca. The Woman King is set back in the 1820s and follows the Dahomey Kingdom in Africa. Indeed, the action sequences are hugely important to buoying the runtime of The Woman King. There’s simply never been a movie like this in theaters, and the care taken with its contents make each scene, battle and expression into a revelation. All of these storylines are greatly serviced by The Woman King’s production and design elements. While each action scene from The Woman King offers a shot of adrenaline throughout the movie’s runtime, there is obviously a deeper story being told by Gina Prince-Bythewood and company. As previously mentioned, The Woman King is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, who is known for projects like Love & Basketball and The Old Guard.

Led by General Nanisca (Viola Davis), an all-female unit of Agojie, or Amazons, strike the enemy outpost in the dead of night, rising from the tall grass with ...

“The role of fantasy is to create the heroes we cannot have in the real world,” she says. “That’s why you have things like ‘Black Panther.’ ” Still, she goes on, “I think it’s also really important to be aware of the truth.” Nyong’o has given no public explanation for dropping out of “The Woman King.” But I suspect that she left precisely because of these reservations. “Not good at all!” As the woman sings a Yoruba melody, Nyong’o begins to cry, wondering aloud how she can reconcile celebrating the Agojie with the bereavement of their victims’ descendants. Nyong’o never mentions “The Woman King.” But the documentary was filmed a few months after she was cast and not long before her departure was reported. Nyong’o begins her journey enthusing about how “dope” it is to be in the land of the Amazons. [noted](https://isaacsamuel.substack.com/p/the-kingdom-of-dahomey-and-the-atlantic), the kingdom had many motivations, and one of its rulers was astonished when a European visitor assumed that “we go to war for the purpose of supplying your ships with slaves.” If the scriptwriters had wanted, “The Woman King” could have been an amoral epic about swordplay and statecraft, no more consumed by slavery than “ [The Great](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/the-great-reviewed-a-proudly-fictional-pleasurably-vulgar-spin-on-catherine-the-great)”—a Hulu series about Empress Catherine of Russia—is by serfdom. It’s hard not to see uncomfortable echoes of this propaganda in “The Woman King.” On the Route des Esclaves in Ouidah, sculptures testifying to the suffering of the enslaved sit just down the road from monumental evocations of their traffickers’ glory. Why, then, should “The Woman King” be held to a moral standard ignored by the thousands of period dramas about violent Western states? “Burn their whole trade to the ground,” Nanisca proclaims during a battle at the port. Much of the hype around “The Woman King,” which premières Friday, has focussed on the obstacles to making it. [Angélique Kidjo](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/angelique-kidjo-has-heard-it-all), Ghezo has been forced to pay a humiliating tribute of guns and captives to the Oyo.

Cinoche.com est la référence cinéma au Québec. Un site complet sur le cinéma : horaire des cinémas du Québec, fiches détaillées des films, critiques, ...

[Agnieszka Smoczynska](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/40334). [Tom George](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/53855). [Gina Prince-Bythewood](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/15049). [Guillaume Lambert](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/40120). Avec Mia Goth et David Corenswet.](https://www.cinoche.com/films/pearl) Avec [Letitia Wright](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/42122) et [Tamara Lawrance](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/53512). Ensemble, ils recueillent les indices et les témoignages, découvrant rapidement que la liste de suspects potentiels est longue. Lorsque celui-ci est froidement assassiné après une représentation, les regards se tournent vers les membres de la distribution, l'équipe de création et de production. Avec [Sam Rockwell](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/291) et [Saoirse Ronan](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/10623). Du cinéaste visionnaire Brett Morgen et sanctionné par l'entourage de Bowie. C'est un film qui témoigne du courage de femmes qui pour la plupart témoignent à visage découvert. Avec [François Pérusse](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/42064) et [Éric Bernier](https://www.cinoche.com/personnes/37558).

That weapon is the Agojie, a.k.a. the Dahomey Amazons. They are a generations-old fighting force led by a brilliant tactician and general Nanisca (Davis), with ...

A huge shift is about to be underway for the second-most widely circulated cryptocurrency. The House of Commons held this historic opportunity to allow MPs to pay tribute ahead of Monday's national commemorations. It is a remarkable performance—including a lengthy monologue that showcases all the various sides of Pearl’s personality—at the heart of this truly oddball and off-kilter examination of the push and pull between repression and the need for attention. Set in 1918, the outside world is suffering through the Spanish Flu pandemic and the First World War, but on the remote farm that Pearl (Goth) calls home, nothing ever happens. “Pearl” is a prequel of sorts to “X,” director Ti West’s previous film. Part of it is the TV-movie-of-the-week feel. Part of it is the script. Complicating his investigation are the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race Detective Monroe (Roy Wood Jr.), germophobe art dealer Horan (Kyle MacLachlan) and a randy Countess (Marcia Gay Harden), who pronounces Fletch’s name as “Flesh.” The film does have some funny moments—a conversation with a designer about the meaning of the word “bespoke” is laugh out loud—and it is a hoot to see Hamm and his old “Mad Men” co-star John Slattery, who plays a Boston newspaper editor, together again in their foul-mouthed and funny scenes, but Hamm doesn’t register as either serious or comedic. Based on Gregory Mcdonald’s 1976 book of the same name but set in the present day, the story begins as Fletch, who now lives in Italy with his wealthy girlfriend Angela (Lorenza Izzo), visits Boston to track down stolen paintings worth millions of dollars. Until the change, they must train a new batch of recruits, including the 19-year-old Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), a rebellious woman offered to King Ghezo by her father. The gumshoe, who, ironically, doesn’t like to wear shoes, is now played by John Hamm in “Confess, Fletch,” a murder mystery now playing in theatres and on VOD, that aims to reboot the franchise.

The Viola Davis produced and starring femme warrior pic is off to a solid start with $1.7M after showtimes that began at 3PM yesterday at 3,271.

The $50M feature co-financed by TriStar and eOne is expected to make between $13M-$16M this weekend after [a very warmly received premiere](https://deadline.com/2022/09/viola-davis-delivers-impassioned-speech-at-woman-king-tiff-world-premiere-magnum-opus-is-for-risk-takers-naysayers-actress-six-year-old-self-1235113548/) at TIFF last Friday, and Rotten Tomatoes critic reviews that had hovered at 100% now have now settled to a still-great 94%. [The Woman King](https://deadline.com/tag/the-woman-king/) is off to a solid start with $1.7M after showtimes that began at 3 p.m. [Sony](https://deadline.com/tag/sony/) was eyeing Harriet and Widows, the latter a Davis action crime movie, as comps, and already Woman King has beaten both those pics’ respective $600K Thursday previews by 183%. Now at 3,056 theaters, Bullet Train‘s domestic total through six weeks stands at $93.9M, while Maverick counts $706.8M at the end of its 16th week. The Woman King expands to 3,675 theaters this weekend, and the hope is that those excellent reviews will pull in adults at a time when there’s not much on the marquee. [Pearl](https://deadline.com/tag/pearl/) going wide at 2,900 theaters.

Atim is a two-time Olivier Award winner who stars alongside Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch and John Boyega in Sony's historical epic The Woman King, ...

Also a playwright, her debut play, Anguis — produced by Avalon and BBC Arts — premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019. The actress also starred alongside Academy Award winner Halle Berry in her feature directorial debut, Bruised, which premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. The actress plays Signora Vitelli in Robert Zemeckis’ Pinocchio for Disney+ and will next appear in the drama All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, which is a co-production between A24 and Barry Jenkins’ filmmaking collective, Pastel.

The Woman King features Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu and John Boyega in a (somewhat true) story of the Agojie, an all-female guard protecting the ...

One helping factor is that The Woman King is the first big movie aimed at women since Crawdads, which was the first of its ilk since Everything, Everything All at Once and The Lost City in late March. It may not be explicitly positioned as an Oscar flick (it’s an action movie first), but a strong opening could put it in the game. Still, otherwise both ‘not a white guy’ flicks will have the field to themselves, especially outside of horror movies like Halloween Ends (and the rerelease of Avatar), until Black Adam and Tickets to Paradise on October 21. The Woman King features Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu and John Boyega in a (somewhat true) story of the Agojie, an all-female guard protecting the king and otherwise defending the West African kingdom of Dahomey in the 18th and 19th centuries. That old-school melodrama, starring Daisy Edgar Jones and based on a much-read best-seller, legged out to $86 million domestic on a $24 million budget. Splitting the difference would be around $17 million, a debut on par with Sony’s female-targeted Where the Crawdads Sing from back in July.