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If you enjoyed Apocalypto – that long but exciting Mel Gibson movie about natives being chased through the jungle with (supposedly) ancient Mayan dialogue – then you’ll probably like Chief of War, which is much the same, only in Hawaiian. Like Apocalypto, it even has sailing ships appearing mysteriously from Europe with crews that serve the role of dei ex machina, rescuing endangered native protagonists at key moments.
This time our based-on-a-true-story hero is Ka’iana, the 18th-century Maui chieftain who succeeded in uniting the four warring island kingdoms (Oahu, Maui, Molokai and Lanai) and turned them into the kingdom of Hawaii. He is played by Jason Momoa – to you, Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones; to the drooling masses, Aquaman – looking buffer than ever and sporting a fine pair of buttocks which you get to see bulging from his thong like gibbous moons in every other scene.
Obviously the first thing that comes to mind about Hawaii – apart from maybe “Book ’em Danno,” Magnum P.I. and The White Lotus – is man-eating sharks. Sure enough, that’s how we first meet Ka’iana. He is on his outrigger, with those familiar stabilizing floats, in search of a huge shark to kill heroically. This he does by first chucking some kind of narcotic into the water and then, using himself as bait, lassoing it over the head and – having first thanked the shark spirit for his sacrifice – climbing astride it and stabbing it. According to amateur experts on the internet this is not a wholly accurate representation of Hawaiian shark-hunting techniques.
Another thing that they’ve got a bit wrong is the weaponry. This surprises me. You’d think, this being a labor of love from the world’s leading Hawaiian actor, the show being bravely filmed not in English and so on, that they would have taken enormous pains with the details of native warfare. Before gunpowder intruded, it was, of course, all brutal hand-to-hand combat. Elite warriors were trained in a martial art called Kapu Ku’ialua, focused on joint-locking and bone breaking. They also used spears, slings and clubs, including the leiomano, which is like a paddle with tiger-shark teeth set into the edges. Apparently – so the war buffs on Reddit say – the club (studded with the teeth and bones of conquered enemies) used by Ka’iana is the wrong shape and more like the ones used by Native Americans. I love this pedantry.
Also, while we’re still doing solecisms, the women are all horribly overdressed. In real 18th-century Hawaii, we wouldn’t only have been entranced by Ka’iana’s delightful buttocks but also by the even lovelier breasts of all the womenfolk, none of which would have been covered. In fact, apart from when they were in ceremonial dress – including tall, splendidly cumbersome feather helmets – they wore little but their elaborate tattoos.
On the evidence of the two episodes so far, I’d say its main flaws are a slightly ponderous over-reverence – the scenes telling us about ancient Hawaiian mythology and prophecies go on a bit – and an undue reliance on implausibility in the action scenes. For example, in one sequence, where Ka’iana has been cornered by his pursuers at the top of an apparently insurmountable cliff, the show gets round the problem by cutting to a scene where he’s now at the bottom, no longer followed, and very handily near a secret cave in which – extraordinary coincidence – there happens to be a beautiful female stranger of royal blood who is up for tending his wounds.
None of this is going to put me off watching. I like rooting for Momoa’s noble, musclebound character (though I doubt his real-life counterpart was quite so flawless); the baddies are properly scary, evil and brutal; and, with seven episodes still to go, there’s plenty of room for expansive adventure before we get to the inevitable epic final battle scene. I hope, for example, they cover the curious episode in Ka’iana’s life where he became the first native chief to leave Hawaii, participating in an expedition with English fur trader John Meares on a 1787 expedition to China.
You’d probably have more fun being beaten to death with a tiger-shark-teeth paddle
Tell you what you don’t want to be watching, though: Too Much. It’s allegedly a rom-com – written by the unfunny and overrated Lena Dunham – and it invites you to sympathize with the travails (largely autobiographical, one gathers) of an overweight, needy, woke, aggressively feminist, generally hateful New York woman who comes to London to live like a Brontë sister. But you don’t sympathize with her. Not remotely. In fact, you’d probably have more fun being beaten to death with one of those paddles with the tiger-shark teeth sticking out of the sides.
