Chief of War

For those who profess that there is nothing to watch on TV, we boldly say, you’re dead wrong! In fact, the problem is the reverse, there’s too much to watch. From rom-coms to thrillers, romantic dramas to Reality TV, documentaries to action movies, and  laugh-out-loud sit coms, between traditional TV and a plethora of streaming services, the options seem limitless. Recently there have been a crop of powerful, rigorously researched historical series that deliver drama, action, and romance to the small screen. We’re big fans of Hulu’s A Thousand Blows and now, we’re hooked on the new Apple TV+ series Chief of War, a historical reimagining of the unification of the Hawaiian Islands from an indigenous perspective. Amen to that. It’s about time!

From creators Jason Momoa and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett comes the epic series which takes place in late eighteenth-century Polynesia, that is, for a start. Momoa plays Ka’iana, the wise, contemplative, and physically commanding Chief of War of the people of Maui, a title he inherited from his deceased father. But rather than serve the power-hungry king, he has exiled himself in Kaua’i with his wife Kupuohi (Te Ao o Hinepehinga), sister-in-law Heke (Mainei Kinimaka), and his brothers Namake (Te Kohe Tuhaka), and Nahi’ (Siua Ikale’o) to live in peace amongst their farming communities. So, when King Kahekili (Temuera Morrison) requests an audience, Ka’iana is rightfully suspicious. Seen as a traitor by some, he is not uniformly welcomed home, but with talk of prophecy, unity, and an end to the senseless fighting, Kahekili soon convinces Ka’iana – a fearsome warrior and rightful inheritor of the title Chief of War – to take up arms against another tribe to move toward peace.

But all is not as it seems, and kings are not always noble in thought or deed. Such in the case as Ka’iana discovers, too late, that the supposedly warring people he was sent to defeat are simple farmers, now brutally exterminated so that King Kahekili can assassinate the young king of O’ahu. The guilt that Ka’iana feels in multiplied by the fact that many died following him into battle and many innocents were murdered. Thus, while King Kahekili is exposed as a liar intent on using his spiritual authority and military might to dominate the other three kingdoms it is something he will clearly have to do without Ka’iana’s help. But for the Chief of War, opting out is not an option, so as he flees the island, pursued by Kahekili’s forces, Ka’iana understands that he is now marked for death.

By the way, King Kahekili is not the only power-hungry king in the neighbourhood. After Keoua (Cliff Curtis) inherits the throne in a district of Hawaii after his father King Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s death, he selfishly defies his father’s final wishes including the elder man’s desire to appoint his nephew and Keoua’s cousin Kamehame-ha (Kaina Makua) as the Chief of War.

The battle scenes are cinematically and historically gripping with the series recreating forms of indigenous ritual and warfare including spectacular military and ceremonial dress and fearsome weaponry. Powerfully, female characters like Ka’iana’s beloved wife Kupuohi join the men in battle with their ma’a (sling weapons), fighting valiantly alongside them. Characters like Ka’ahumanu (Luciane Buchanan) also provide counsel and guidance to their husbands and fathers and push against the gendered boundaries of their circumscribed roles. It is a defiant Ka’ahumanu who finds, aids, and hides the wounded Ka’iana after he is injured in the process of running from King Kahekili’s vengeful warriors.

Ka’ahumanu’s story line is also powerful. She thinks deeply about the limiting roles imposed upon women in her society and is unafraid to express her doubts in questions posed to her mother, father, and even the stranded white sailor come English teacher, John Young (Benjamin Hoetjes). Protected by royal parents throughout her life, she is eventually ordered to marry Kamehame-ha (Kaina Makua) to forge a political alliance. (So, not a love match then!) Making matters worse, as a part of a royal marriage ritual, she is made to consummate her marriage in front of witnesses who stand outside of the backlit hut and watch as Kamehame-ha mounts her and finishes his business. (Side note: Sex has clearly been bad for millions of heterosexual women across cultures for millennia!) Blessedly, passionate, mutually satisfying lovemaking is also represented in the series.

But it is arguably Captain John Meares (Erroll Shand) who saves Ka’aina’s life by fishing him from the sea and taking him onboard his three masted sailing ship heading to…Alaska?

It is in the aftermath of this unjust life or death hunt that Chief of War opens into a sweeping, multi-continent, seafaring saga which follows Ka’iana on his transpacific adventures to strange and distant lands where he encounters fascinating people both foreign and familiar. Besides the mild and fair-minded Captain Meares, Ka’iana, now thrust into a strange new life at sea is befriended by the free black sailor Tony who takes it upon himself to educate Ka’iana about the new reality of a world steeped in hierarchy and dominated by whites, some openly racist like their fellow sailor Marley (Charlie Brumbly). It is the scruffy and generally unwashed Marley, who upon first opportunity, beats and drugs Tony in an effort to sell him into slavery in Zamboanga in the Spanish East Indies.

But how did we get from Ka’iana elk hunting alongside Inuit in Alaska to Zamboanga? Well, Captain Meares is an equal opportunity adventurer who sets sails throughout the Pacific wherever the wind and opportunity take him. In Zamboanga, Ka’iana finds squalor, slavery, prostitution, heavy-handed Spanish military surveillance, and a Hawaiian trader named Vai (Sisa Grey). It is Vai with her sharp eye, worldly ways, and cosmopolitan insights who immediately sizes Ka’iana up as Chief of War from Hawaii on the basis of his looks and his forearm tattoos. Yet although Ka’iana expresses contempt for what he feels Vai has become in her spiritual distance from their homeland – mainly westernized and money-obsessed – it is to the connected Vai that he must turn to save Tony from enslavement and initiate a plan to take back his beloved home from the warring Kings Kahekili and Keoua. Vai possesses the local insight to know where the enslaved are held before being shipped out and she also knows where to buy guns, the weapons that Ka’iana will need to fight off the multiple threats back home upon his return.

But all will not be the same when Ka’iana returns home. His brave, beautiful, and beloved wife Kupuohi has waited patiently for his return and mourned his assumed death alongside his brother Namake who has also fed, comforted, cared for, commiserated with, admired, and fallen in love with Kupuohi. So, when the two finally surrender to their feelings and make love they do so only after a painful reconciliation with the knowledge that Ka’iana can’t possibly be alive.

Chief of War is a riveting historical saga which combines adventure, action, and romance, through a gripping dramatization of transpacific histories with a much-needed indigenous lens. Its stunning cinematography and set design captures both the sweep and majesty of Hawaiian natural beauty and the Pacific Ocean and the often-intimate private details of an indigenous temple, a merchant ship cargo hold, or an East Indian brothel.

But perhaps what it does best is weave the complex characters – indigenous, black, and white  –  across oceans and a gripping narrative about power, betrayal, prophecy, greed, family, and sovereignty. For black audiences Chief of War also reminds us of something we know all too well: that people who look like you (who are you) are not necessarily the ones who wish you well or who can be counted on to help or protect you in your moment of need. When Ka’iana pulls a still drug-hazed Tony from the cell in which he’d been imprisoned and half carries him back to the ship, we understand that a brotherhood is forming even though they are not of the same tribe, nation, or race. Tony had made it his responsibility to educate and guide Ka’iana in his abrupt introduction to a hostile foreign shipboard life and Ka’iana refused to abandon Tony to a life of enslavement. Indeed, profound moral messages abound in this powerful series, messages that are as much about history as they are about today.