A slow-paced, fact-based interval drama of battle and love in precolonial Hawai’i, “Chief of War,” premiering Friday on Apple TV+, presents co-creator and star Jason Momoa because the late-18th century warrior Ka’iana in a narrative set on the intersection of the island kingdoms and the arrival of European colonists. It’s clearly a ardour challenge, and like many ardour tasks, it may go overboard at occasions, develop overstuffed, to not say oversolemn — although solemnity, to make certain, is suitable to the historical past. However the ardour reveals by, and the stuff is attention-grabbing — nothing you see on a regular basis, for certain.
Hawaii, in fact, was a cultural touchstone, an obsession amongst continental Individuals, lengthy earlier than it turned the fiftieth state. Ukuleles. Metal guitars. Elvis Presley in “Blue Hawaii” and “Paradise, Hawaiian Style,” to not point out “Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite.” The Brady Bunch traveled there, and so did Dennis the Menace in a comic book ebook I as soon as owned. “Magnum P.I.,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “The White Lotus,” Season 1. Hawaiian Punch (created 1934), which combined orange, pineapple, ardour fruit, guava and papaya flavors, and continues to be out there at a retailer close to you in a minimum of 14 flavors. Tiki bars. Suburban luaus. Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, the place the birds sing phrases and the flowers croon, introduced by Dole. It goes on and on.
Momoa, who was born in Honolulu, raised in Iowa and returned to the islands for school, slipped into present enterprise by means of “Baywatch Hawaii,” adopted by the Oahu-set lodge drama “North Shore.” He performed an alien in 4 seasons of “Stargate Atlantis,” Conan the Barbarian, Aquaman, in fact, and twice hosted “Saturday Night Live.” (And lately Ozzy Osbourne’s swan track live performance “Back to the Beginning.”) It’s not stunning that he’d need to stretch just a little, to step away from style tasks, and symbolize the roots of his individuals in a respectful method. One would name “Chief of War” well-researched, even when one was under no circumstances conscious of how a lot analysis was accomplished. The strange viewer could have to take notes to maintain issues straight; titles however, I wasn’t all the time sure what island we have been on, particularly since characters may be residing on or aligned with one other, and since inside an island, numerous “districts” may be at battle, intramurally, because it have been. (I did take notes, and I’m nonetheless just a little confused as to precisely what a few of them have been after.)
A comparability to “Shogun” is pretty much as good as inevitable, given the subtitled dialogue — many of the sequence is carried out in Hawaiian — the encounters with outsiders, the bold monarchs and the warring factions. Within the latter respects, the sequence additionally resembles “Game of Thrones,” the place Momoa spent two seasons as chieftain Khal Drogo. And its opening may make you consider “The Lord of the Rings,” as a lady’s voice units the story (a prophesied king will unite the infinite, ending “a cycle of endless war”), introducing the island kingdoms of Kaua’i, Hawai’i, Maui and O’ahu, “separated by cunning chiefs and powerful gods.”
We’re launched to Ka’iana, a Maui battle chief who has left that island, and extra to the purpose, abandoned its military, to dwell a peaceable life on Kaua’i along with his two brothers Nahi’ (Siua Ikale’o) and Namake (Te Kohe Tuhaka) and vital others Kupuohi (Te Ao o Hinepehinga) and Heke (Mainei Kinimaka). On the entire, given what follows, one would name this the superior way of life, and I’d have been completely happy simply to spend just a little time on this world, with its plant-based structure and fashions and cheeky native youngsters entering into Ka’iana’s stuff. However like a retired gunslinger in a western film, circumstances is not going to let him relaxation. (He’ll, in reality, sling a gun earlier than the season is out.)
Kaina Makua and Luciane Buchanan additionally stars in “Chief of War.”
(Nicola Dove/Apple TV+)
“A war chief who runs from war — you are a chief of contradictions,” says Kaʻahumanu (Luciane Buchanan), a younger Maui girl Ka’iana meets in a cave whereas he’s on the run, the place she’s mendacity low from her councilor father (Moses Items), who means to ship her to Hawai’i to marry her to Kamehameha (Kaina Makua), answerable for the “god of war,” a kind of navy good-luck appeal whose possession shall be a serious difficulty, although Kamehameha’s personal inclinations bend towards peace. However with loopy villains like King Kahekili (Temuera Morrison) and Keoua (Cliff Curtis), to not point out some rogue white sailors with their very own desires of conquest, which will have to attend.
A up to date account describes the real-life Ka’iana as “near 6 feet 5 inches in stature, and the muscular form of his limbs was of a Herculean appearance,” which is mainly typecasting for Momoa. In some ways “Chief of War” is one other superhero position for him, if a extra emotionally busy one. He’s the very best fighter by miles, can catch a spear in his head, journey a shark (a drugged shark, however nonetheless) and whip out a laser stare calculated to make his enemies quake. However he additionally should grapple with household enterprise, love stuff and getting individuals to hearken to his higher concepts.
Circumstances will lead Ka’iana into the ocean and onto a British crusing ship, the place he’ll journey to Alaska and the Spanish East Indies, be taught all about weapons, which he regards as a doubtlessly helpful invention, and to talk English — John Younger (Benjamin Hoetjes) a marooned sailor taken into the neighborhood, is educating it again on Hawai’i, and shortly many characters are talking English, even when it doesn’t make any sensible sense. And in a narrative by which “pale-skin” colonists meet and exploit Indigenous populations, white racism essentially will get a licking — “They do not see you as people,” says Tony (James Udom), a Black man who befriends Ka’iana on his unintended voyage — together with an precise licking.
Injecting a pressure of anticipatory feminism, Momoa and his collaborator Thomas Paʻa Sibbett have taken care not solely to include ladies into their testosterone-heavy world (together with Sisa Gray as a street-smart Hawai’ian expat), however to present them attention-grabbing issues to do — Kupuohi “was once a chiefess of war,” Heke desires Nahi’ to show her how one can combat — and clever issues to say, e.g., “Men train their whole lives to be warriors but they fear being wrong more than they fear death.” (So true.) There are homosexual characters, too, introduced with out remark.
The actors are interesting after they’re meant to be, and really a lot unappealing after they’re meant to be, however they’re all glorious (together with the nonprofessional Makua). The pacing could be pokey — elegiac if you happen to favor — between the large motion scenes, which could be disturbingly violent. (It will also be very violent when somebody’s simply attempting to make some extent.) Filmed throughout Hawaii and New Zealand and thoughtfully designed, it’s all the time a pleasure to take a look at, however some dodgy CGI within the volcano scene. (Sure, there’s a volcano.) There may be one red-hued orgy scene (denoting villainy) too many — which is to say, there’s one. The rating, by Hans Zimmer and James Everingham, is Hollywood-obvious, and the sequence as an entire just isn’t proof against corniness — however that’s typically simply one other phrase for love.
