"you do not remember me? Now, you will never forget."

The Woman King tells a story based on real events surrounding women warriors: the Agojie. An army of virgin soldiers, fierce defenders of the Dahomey Kingdom...& "the bloodiest bi+ches in Africa".

All I knew in advance came from the poster & knowledge of the major players (Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega), & it's been a battle trying to curb my high expectations. 3 weeks of fighting & failing to control my excitement; from the moment I secured tickets for tonight's press-screening.
I was destined to be disappointed...
But that's before I knew the power I was up against.

Story aside, TWK is cinema worth celebrating. Magnificent costume design, makeup, & hairstyling. Gorgeously choreographed fight sequences & musical dance numbers. Powerhouse performances delivered by sculpted, statuesque, female icons.
Literally an EXTRAVAGANZA.

Tho, I'll admit that this film is FAR from flawless. It's hammy as hell, completely predictable, & there's an arc that frankly I could've done without. Then, of course, there's the story paradox. Though the inclusion of some pretty ugly truths helps to balance out the remarkable heroics, we still have no real way of knowing exactly how accurate the backdrop behind these reimagined historical figures truly is...

& I couldn't care less 😍
None of that stopped me from going through every emotion on the feelings wheel at least once & to rather intense degrees. I laughed, I cried, I cheered (audibly) in a room full of people doing the very same things.
A revisionist retelling has every right to be this sensational & this glorious when herstory of this magnitude has gone untold for this long.

& Perhaps the historical injustice of silencing such legacy is why this works so well(?).
For indeed, it is something I will never forget.

➰➰➰➰1/2
Bc YES GIRL, rip that rope!!
Best of 2022

PS: My head says 4, my heart says 5. Guaranteed I'll be seeing this in theaters again this month, so for now, I'll let 'stupid' & 'I'm with stupid' box it out in the middle.

PPS: 'Epically Scaled Historic Action Spectacular' is the breakthrough genre of 2022, & it's about damn time.