"There will be no prisoners," snarls Viola Davis's imposing West African general Nanisca, staring down a settlement of 19th-century slave traders in the rousing new historical epic, The Woman King. "Burn their whole trade to the ground."
The Oscar-winning star – wrapped in a cowry shell sash, hair sculpted high over a battle scar and thousand-yard stare – is the formidable, fearsome centre of American filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood's action-packed Afrocentric affair, a big, mean, pulpy movie that drags the old Hollywood historical epic out of the shadows and into the cultural moment.
In its scope, sensation and soul, it puts the current crop of superhero movies – and their feeble political gestures – to shame.
