1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,520
Speaker 1: Good morning band, Good morning guys. How are you good?

2
00:00:02,600 --> 00:00:05,520
Speaker 1: Work very well? I am a Viola Davis fan. Yes,

3
00:00:05,680 --> 00:00:08,560
Speaker 1: so you should be. Yeah, but I don't know about

4
00:00:09,240 --> 00:00:12,560
Speaker 1: the Woman King. What's going on? You get ready for

5
00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:16,600
Speaker 1: part movie review, part history lessons. That's what everybody wants.

6
00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:20,439
Speaker 1: Good morning Blockbusters. Yes you can get me, professor. Oh,

7
00:00:20,600 --> 00:00:23,560
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Sorry. So this is so the

8
00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:25,920
Speaker 1: best way to think about this film is that it

9
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,400
Speaker 1: will do to Viola Davis, who is an amazing actress.

10
00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:33,080
Speaker 1: She is phenomenal. It will do to her what Gladiator

11
00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:36,800
Speaker 1: did to Russell Crowe. Right, So it's just like Gladiator.

12
00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:40,640
Speaker 1: The Woman King is Sword and Sandal, epic loosely based

13
00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:43,640
Speaker 1: on history, and it gives the lead actor, in the

14
00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:46,320
Speaker 1: case of The Woman King, it's Viola Davis, the chance

15
00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:48,920
Speaker 1: to really shine like she's going to get genuine Oscar

16
00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:51,720
Speaker 1: buzz for this performance because she is awesome as always

17
00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,639
Speaker 1: in a role that has a ton of action like

18
00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:58,880
Speaker 1: there is a serious, serious action like and even even

19
00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:02,280
Speaker 1: just the idea of a major Hollywood blockbuster being built

20
00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:05,640
Speaker 1: around a fifty seven year old black woman you go

21
00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:08,479
Speaker 1: back a few years, that's unheard of, and she is ripped.

22
00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:12,600
Speaker 1: She is absolutely badass in this movie. But also, like Gladiator,

23
00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:14,920
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pathos going on here as well, right, Like,

24
00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:16,959
Speaker 1: there's a lot of trauma that the League character has

25
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,520
Speaker 1: to get over and deal with. So there's also some

26
00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:22,280
Speaker 1: pretty serious acting from her as well. So let's rewind

27
00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:24,959
Speaker 1: a little bit. And so this movie is set in

28
00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:28,959
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Dahome, which was in Africa, like from

29
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,840
Speaker 1: around about the seventeenth to nineteenth century. It existed a

30
00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:37,520
Speaker 1: real place and it was famous for having this army

31
00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:40,399
Speaker 1: of elite all female warriors. It sounds like something that

32
00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:42,399
Speaker 1: a Hollywood scriptwriter would come up with, but it was

33
00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:46,680
Speaker 1: absolutely true. When the first kind of European colonizers arrived

34
00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:50,040
Speaker 1: in Africa, they encountered this all female army and they

35
00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:51,840
Speaker 1: thought they were like the Amazons. They thought this is

36
00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:55,560
Speaker 1: the real life, the real life Amazon women. And so

37
00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:59,320
Speaker 1: the movie is about Viola Davis who plays Naniska, the

38
00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 1: general of the Agoji, which is the name for these

39
00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:06,360
Speaker 1: all female fighting force, and they're the defenders of the crown.

40
00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:09,440
Speaker 1: They defend King Gezo, who's played by John Boyeger who's

41
00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:11,560
Speaker 1: from the Star Wars the New Star Wars movies. Force

42
00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:15,359
Speaker 1: Awakens and last Jedi and all that, and so their

43
00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:18,960
Speaker 1: job is to protect the kingdom and defend it from

44
00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:21,520
Speaker 1: the Oyo Empire, which is a neighboring country. And this

45
00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:27,040
Speaker 1: Oyo Empire have been raiding Dahoma, capturing their citizens and

46
00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:29,440
Speaker 1: selling them to European slave traders, which is something that

47
00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:33,080
Speaker 1: happened in Africa back then, and so it sets up

48
00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:36,440
Speaker 1: this drama where you've got one kingdom kind of fighting

49
00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:40,840
Speaker 1: against slavery, the bad guys, which are the Oyo Empire

50
00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:43,520
Speaker 1: trying to facilitate slavery, and then of course you've got

51
00:02:43,520 --> 00:02:45,680
Speaker 1: the European slave traders as well, who are obviously the

52
00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:49,160
Speaker 1: baddies too. And then making it even more interesting is

53
00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:52,760
Speaker 1: the kind of the internal conflicts that happen within the Egoji.

54
00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:56,960
Speaker 1: And so that is basically around the relationship between Naniska

55
00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:00,560
Speaker 1: played by Viola Davis, and this young warrior name who's

56
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:02,799
Speaker 1: kind of like the on New character who comes in

57
00:03:02,840 --> 00:03:06,639
Speaker 1: as a rookie after being given away by her dad

58
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:08,520
Speaker 1: because she was kind of too spirited and didn't want

59
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:10,560
Speaker 1: to accept a kind of forced marriage, kind of one

60
00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:13,000
Speaker 1: of those deals, and so she's forced to become an

61
00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:14,720
Speaker 1: Agoji and decides do you know what, I'm going to

62
00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:16,520
Speaker 1: become the best of all of them, even if that

63
00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,600
Speaker 1: means coming into conflict with Naniska. And now Nawi is

64
00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:24,000
Speaker 1: played by a South African actress named Thusobado, who's amazing.

65
00:03:24,080 --> 00:03:27,519
Speaker 1: She's really awesome. But as this relationship between Naniska and

66
00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:31,160
Speaker 1: Nawi develops, there's some stuff in their shared past that

67
00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:33,880
Speaker 1: makes it even more complicated, and there's some real, real

68
00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:37,960
Speaker 1: serious drama going on there. And now there's also some

69
00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:42,440
Speaker 1: fantastic performances from the other Goji warriors. Lashana Lynch, who

70
00:03:42,480 --> 00:03:47,000
Speaker 1: we've seen as Maria Rambo in Captain Marvel and she

71
00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:49,240
Speaker 1: was also in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Manners.

72
00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:52,920
Speaker 1: She is absolutely awesome and she deserves a major role

73
00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:56,600
Speaker 1: sometime soon. But then, the interesting thing about this film

74
00:03:56,640 --> 00:03:59,440
Speaker 1: is the historical context, which is so it paints kind

75
00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:04,040
Speaker 1: of the War of Dahome the Agoji as these heroes, right,

76
00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:07,800
Speaker 1: But in real life, historians say that the Egoji probably

77
00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:11,400
Speaker 1: only existed to capture people to sell them to European

78
00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:14,200
Speaker 1: slave traders, So basically the opposite to how this movie

79
00:04:14,200 --> 00:04:17,240
Speaker 1: pitched it, and Dahome was actually probably the worst kingdom

80
00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:20,320
Speaker 1: when it came to cooperating with European slave traders. But

81
00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:22,960
Speaker 1: so what's happened here is a Hollywood Someone from Hollywood

82
00:04:22,960 --> 00:04:25,800
Speaker 1: has traveled through Africa come across the story of the

83
00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,400
Speaker 1: Egoji and thought, wow, what an amazing movie. This would

84
00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:34,240
Speaker 1: be some pesky some pesky fashion, which is a classic

85
00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:36,800
Speaker 1: Hollywood thing, right, So it'd be like making a movie

86
00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,160
Speaker 1: about Genghis Khan or Vikings and saying, what great guys

87
00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:41,320
Speaker 1: they were, were going around raping and pillaging all the time.

88
00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:43,919
Speaker 1: So there's a little bit of that going on. But

89
00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:46,719
Speaker 1: you know, it's so rare that you see, as we said,

90
00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:50,400
Speaker 1: a movie that's an African story in a big Hollywood blockbuster,

91
00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:52,880
Speaker 1: and an African women's story like this just doesn't happen,

92
00:04:52,920 --> 00:04:56,960
Speaker 1: right with a fifty seven year old So you can

93
00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:59,280
Speaker 1: maybe for you maybe forgive a little bit of revisionist

94
00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:02,279
Speaker 1: history because it is such a groundbreaking film. Interestingly, and

95
00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:04,719
Speaker 1: this is a fun fact for Marvel fans. So this

96
00:05:04,839 --> 00:05:07,479
Speaker 1: film The Woman King probably doesn't get made if it

97
00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:10,600
Speaker 1: wasn't for the success of Black Panther Back into Right,

98
00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:12,960
Speaker 1: which kind of opened the door for black stories to

99
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:15,599
Speaker 1: be told in a big way in Hollywood, and the

100
00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:18,760
Speaker 1: all female warriors in Black Panther were actually based on

101
00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:22,520
Speaker 1: the Agoji in this movie. It's a fun fact to

102
00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:28,520
Speaker 1: come back. Okay, how many stars are you giving it? Well,

103
00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,799
Speaker 1: like there is. It's a bit problematic from a historical perspective,

104
00:05:31,839 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 1: but you know, I think you can move past it

105
00:05:34,640 --> 00:05:36,760
Speaker 1: because it's a very very interesting true story that it's

106
00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:38,280
Speaker 1: based on. I'm going to give this one three and

107
00:05:38,279 --> 00:05:41,480
Speaker 1: a half stars. Very good. There you go, you sound impressed.

108
00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:43,880
Speaker 1: And before you go, Professor o'sha, we did enjoy you

109
00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:46,080
Speaker 1: on telethon on the weekend, so we want to get

110
00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:48,800
Speaker 1: your autograph, you and your pajamas. There you tell itthon pajamas.

111
00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:50,600
Speaker 1: I'll sign that for you, sign that for inste a

112
00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:51,400
Speaker 1: big good. Thanks Ben,