A film that will make you want to give a standing ovation to ‘The Woman King’
I want to start off by saying I have never experienced a movie that made me have chills, tears, and real pain all in a two hours viewing. This movie will have you on the edge of your seat the entire time. Some of the film is actually based on a true story of the Dahomey women-only warriors known as the “Agodjie” located in West Africa.
In my opinion, Gina Prince-Bythewood the director of “The Woman King” has some of the best Black cinema films known like, “Love & Basketball” and “The Secret Life of Bees”. It was written by Dana Stevens who also screen-wrote the Netflix film “Fatherhood” starring Kevin Hart which was impeccable. The two women came together to form a masterpiece not only in Black Cinema films but for action packed film in general in 2022.
These two women brought a wonderful cast together to create something I am so happy I had the chance to experience. “The Woman King,” starred incredible actors like Viola Davis, John Boyega, Lashana Lynch and Shelia Atim. This cast played their roles to the max. I actually thought the characters were truly those people.
My rating of the film is 10/10. You will walk out of the theater or wherever you’ve watched the film saddened by the loss of your favorite character and elated about new beginnings.
It was very action-packed which kept my eyes on and off the screen as well as moments of feeling extremely heavy-hearted. Not only that but the women who played the Agodjie soldiers, actors Davis, Mbedu, Lynch, and Atim went through a five-hour full-body daily activities that included running, strength training, and martial arts, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Since I have a hard time sticking to being consistent with working out and eating right, reading that they endured intense training to perform their own stunts was inspirational. I mean after seeing the film I went straight to the gym the next day. I love a good film or documentary that gives me a good boost to change my life.
This is a beautiful movie that was done with respect to African culture and the gruesome beginning of the slave trade in the 1820’s. I learned something from the film (Spoiler alert) that African villages and the Spaniards were capturing Africans and selling them in the slave trade. It wasn’t like the little textbooks we read in highschool and middle school, where Europeans were running into villages capturing Africans. Africans were capturing themselves.
This film was about protection and financial stability for their village. It was about honoring thy self rather than a higher power. There were some scenes that were hard to watch. In this generation, you see memes all across social media joking about, “I couldn’t be my ancestors, those slave owners would get these hands,” with all jokes aside yes, that is exactly how I would have been, in those chains. That’s why it’s so hard to watch particular scenes like this because I want them to fight for their freedom and fight to get away.
I will say, we have more than enough slave adaptations to last a life time. I find this one to be different from the rest primarily because it was not solely based on the mistreatment of African people and slaves. Most films based on slavery glorify the gruesome violence during that time, so this was refreshing. I can go on and on about this film but; what would be the point of that– this film is truly worth watching.
