Review: Viola Davis adds another jewel to her crown in a rousing 'Woman King'
by Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
Sep 16, 2022
4 minutes
With her rousing new action-drama, "The Woman King," director Gina Prince-Bythewood suggests that, in at least one crucial respect, the West African kingdom of Dahomey was more ahead of its time than that starry imperialist empire called Hollywood. An early 19th-century epic awash in militaristic might and colonial oppression, the movie burnishes the truth and the legend of the Agojie, an all-female regiment of warriors who fought for Dahomey with great ferocity, unapologetic bloodlust and selfless abandon. And the most ferocious among them, at least in this swift and satisfying telling, was their top general, Nanisca, played by Viola Davis in the first major
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