The Woman King is the remarkable story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen. Inspired by true events, The Woman King follows the emotionally epic journey of General Nanisca (Oscar®-winner Viola Davis) as she trains the next generation of recruits and prepares them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life.
The Agojie warriors lived to serve, defend, and protect the Dahomey kingdom and its king. The Dahomey Kingdom was one of the wealthiest at the time, and its defenders, the Agojie, were the most feared warriors in West Africa, in the territory we now recognize as modern-day Benin.
“I felt The Woman King was an important story because I saw myself in it,” says Viola Davis, the Oscar®-winning actress and producer of the film. “I saw my femininity in it. I saw my blackness in it. I saw a really important part of history in it. I always say any part of history is important, even the small parts. And I think that it is a story that the world is hungry for.”
The film’s director, Gina Prince-Bythewood says, “In this story, we have the ability to reshape what it means to be female. We’ve never seen this before. I love stories like this that can reframe what it means to be female, reframe femininity, reframe strengths. These are real women who did something so superhuman, yet they were not superheroes. I just had to put these women on screen.”
Prince-Bythewood adds that the training was important to make the fighting feel authentic and real. “These women legit defeated men,” she says. “They were great warriors because all they did was train. The story takes place in the 1800s, and there was a specific way of fighting with the machetes and spears, but also hand to hand combat, and I wanted to put that on screen.”
“When I first went into it, I thought, ‘there is no way that I’m gonna make it through this,’” says Davis. “I was 56 years old. All the other girls are in their 30s. But after a couple of weeks, I felt badass, I felt strong.”
The Woman King is released in theatres across the region from October 7. The movie is distributed by Empire International, the exclusive theatrical distributor of Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures in the Middle East.
