Like Dom Toretto, “family” is everything to Ka’iana. He once served as the Chief of War for King Kahekili of Maui, but he tired of the ruler’s bloodlust, so he and his family—wife Kupuohi, brother Namaki, sister-in-law Heke, and his loyal dude—Nahi led to Kauai, where they are treated like lowly refugees. At least, they are no longer party to Kahekili’s cruelty, until the King summons them back to Maui.
Reluctantly, Ka’iana once again leads Kahekili’s army, during Maui’s time of need—except the circumstances are not exactly what the King led him to believe. Horrified by their complicity in Kahekili’s atrocities, Ka’iana’s family once again flees Maui. This time, the find shelter in the Kingdom of Hawaii (a.k.a. “The Big Island”), just as a succession battle erupts. Keoua succeeded his father as king, just as he expected. However, the late monarch willed Hawaii’s war god-idol to his nephew, Kamehameha. Essentially, that was like cleaving the Commander-in-Chief duties from the office of the President of the United States. Keoua takes it as a rebuke, which indeed it was.
As the civil war unfolds, Ka’iana’s family aligns with Kamehameha, but it will be an uneasy alliance. However, Ka’iana might not even get that far. While escaping Kahekili’s army, Ka’iana resorts to a death-defying cliff dive, after which an English trading vessel fishes him out of the ocean, on their way to the rough-and-tumble Spanish-Filipino port city of Zamboanga. Ka’iana will get quite an education there, on subjects like guns.
Time will tell how the indigenous Hawaiian community feels about the depiction of famous chiefs like Kahekili and Keoua. For those coming in without any preconceived notions, the series hums along quite briskly as a big, bold, violent historical epic, very much in the tradition of Mel Gibson’s before-scandal films.
Indeed, Chief of War represents an unusually cinematic streaming series. The Hawaiian Island backdrops look stunning and the battle scenes are spectacular. Although Sibbett, Momoa, and cowriter Doug Jung often cast Westerners in villainous roles (especially with respects to the Spanish slave trade), the series itself is much less concerned with the colonialism than the tribal warfare enveloping the islands.
