The True Story Behind Hawaiian History Epic 'Chief of War'

Time​ Magazine

4 days ago

Jason Momoa stands on a double-hulled canoe, steady as the Pacific Ocean heaves beneath him. His hair is bound in a taut knot, a cape of ti leaves in muted green draped over his broad shoulders. The camera catches light as it splinters across the cresting waves. In one fluid motion, he dives, vanishing beneath the glittering surface. The quiet ruptures into struggle as his character Ka'iana, a revered Hawaiian chief, lassoes a shark—man and predator locked in a primal dance of survival. It's a feat of strength and a statement of defiance from a warrior unafraid of whatever the ocean, or the future, might summon.
This opening scene, mythic as it is visceral, sets the tone for Chief of War, Apple TV+'s sweeping nine-episode retelling of Hawaii's unification. It was a period, beginning in the late 18th century and culminating in the early 19th century, defined by fierce battles, shifting alliances, and the arrival of Western forces that forever changed the islands. Beyond starring in the show, Momoa co-wrote, produced, and directed an episode of the series, which debuts Aug. 1 and also features Luciane Buchanan, Temuera Morrison, Te Ao o Hinepehinga, Cliff Curtis, and Kaina Makua.
On a balmy July afternoon, two weeks before Chief of War's premiere, Momoa sits with co-creator Thomas Pa'a Sibbett at the Four Seasons Resort O'ahu at Ko Olina, the sea glinting beyond the balcony. For years, the two immersed themselves in Ka'iana's story of survival, betrayal, and fight to shape a culture on the edge of transformation. Momoa, this time dry and at ease, lets his shoulder-length hair fall in loose waves around his sun-burnished face. In a Hawaiian-print shirt and white trousers, he's quick to smile as he explains how a project this personal, and this sweeping, demanded patience.
'When you have something that's very dear to you and you want to make something on this level, you need to get all your ducks in order,' he tells TIME. Aquaman's success in 2018, he explains, elevated his career to the point where this series became possible. 'We would never be at this level, so you just kind of got to wait for that,' he adds. It also required a creative team prepared for the weight of the story. That meant, alongside close collaborators like producer and director Brian Mendoza, having the industry capital, experience, and trust to tell a story of this scale on their own terms. 'This is our lineage. If we mess it up, we're not going home. There's a lot at stake to get the authenticity right.'
For Momoa, 'home' has layered meaning. The son of Joseph, a Native Hawaiian painter, and Coni, an artist largely of European descent, he was born in Honolulu but mostly raised by his mother in Iowa while spending several summers in Hawaii with his father. Sibbett, also of Native Hawaiian heritage, grew up steeped in Polynesian traditions, where art and dance shaped his identity. The pair previously collaborated on the 2018 thriller Braven, the elegiac 2022 Western The Last Manhunt, and the 2023 sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but Chief of War is their most ambitious partnership yet. It has the scale of an epic while remaining deeply rooted in Native Hawaiian language, culture, and history.
The idea for Chief of War first surfaced when Momoa and Sibbett were approached about telling the story of King Kamehameha I, who united the Hawaiian islands into one kingdom in 1810. But instead of centering solely on the legendary ruler, they chose a more complex figure as their entry point into Hawaiian history. Ka'iana, the first Hawaiian chief to travel beyond the islands, understood the intricate politics at home yet returned with knowledge from beyond the reef, becoming one of the king's key allies.
'Thomas came in with the idea and told me about Ka'iana, which I had no idea about,' Momoa recalls. 'But I thought, this is going to be amazing. It's just great storytelling—a great tale.'
A life pulled by two tides
The unification wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries reshaped Hawaii. For generations, rival chiefs, known as 'ali'i', ruled the eight main islands like self-contained kingdoms, forging and breaking alliances through marriage, diplomacy, and warfare. Then came the foreign sails. British and American traders disrupted the delicate balance, foreigners ' muskets and cannons tipping the scales of battle. Measles and other diseases they brought with them swept through villages, thinning populations in waves. Amid the upheaval, King Kamehameha I saw uniting the islands under one rule as a way to shield Hawaiian culture from the varied threats posed by Western cultural influence.
The wars began in the 1780s. After an early victory in 1782 at the Battle of Moku'ōhai, fought near Hawai'i Island's Kealakekua Bay, (the future) King Kamehameha I turned his gaze outward. In 1790, his forces invaded Maui, leading to the bloody Battle of Kepaniwai, where the waters of ʻĪao Valley were said to run thick with the dead. Five years later came the decisive Battle of Nu'uanu on O'ahu, where warriors were driven over the sheer Pali cliffs, securing his dominance over the most populous islands. By 1810, Kaua'i's King Kaumuali'i ceded his domain without bloodshed, and Hawai'i was politically unified for the first time.
Unity came at a cost. Though King Kamehameha I strategically embraced Western weapons, trade, and advisors to defend his kingdom, unification also opened the islands more fully to outside influence. In consolidating power, he also set in motion a deeper entanglement with foreign interests, one that future generations would struggle to control. Over time, new legal systems, private land ownership, and economic pressures weakened Hawaiian sovereignty, laying the groundwork for the kingdom's eventual overthrow in 1893. That year, Queen Lili'uokalani was deposed by the Committee of Safety—a group of mostly American businessmen and sugar planters—partly enabled by the presence of U.S. Marines.
Ka'iana's life unfolded along these shifting fault lines. Born around 1755 into a vast web of royal lineage that stretched across Hawaii, he was connected to nearly every major ruling family of his time and became the first Hawaiian chief to voyage beyond the islands. In 1787, he sailed to China, the Philippines, and the northwest coast of North America. In Canton, he was received as a dignitary, and honored with livestock, tools, and European goods. When he returned to Hawaii in 1788, Ka'iana brought back these gifts and also foreign knowledge of ships, weapons, and military tactics that made him invaluable to King Kamehameha I.
For a time, Ka'iana was among the king's most trusted war leaders. But by 1795, as King Kamehameha I prepared to invade O'ahu, Ka'iana was excluded from the key war councils, a warning that his life potentially hung in the balance. Choosing defiance, he broke from the king and joined O'ahu's defenders under his cousin Kalanikūpule.
Ka'iana was killed early in the Battle of Nu'uanu, near a stone wall close to what is now Queen Emma's Summer Palace. Hundreds of his warriors also fell. Was their cause a betrayal, or a principled stand against a ruler whose ambitions threatened to consume their way of life? Some historians see him as a visionary who glimpsed a future Hawaii caught between two worlds; others view him as a tragic figure undone by the violent tide of change. In his lifetime, he was celebrated as the 'Prince of Kaua'i,' the first Hawaiian to witness the wider Pacific world and return to tell the story. But in the end, he could not escape being swept away by the very forces he sought to understand.
Speaking the language of the ancestors
Chief of War does not shy away from the darker truths of unification: the bloodshed, the betrayals, and the sacrifices made in the name of survival. It also reveals a Hawaii rarely seen on screen—sacred heiau temples, the fierce precision of Kapu Ku'ialua martial arts, and the intricate systems of alliance and influence that shaped the islands long before Western ships broke the horizon.
One way the series honors its roots is through its embrace of the Hawaiian language. Much of the show, including its first two episodes, is spoken in ʻOlelo Hawai'i, the lyrical native tongue of the islands. 'The truth is, to hear and to know someone's language is to know the people and the way they think,' Sibbett says. 'It was integral.'
Reviving the language was a profound challenge. Generations ago, colonizers suppressed the teaching of ʻOlelo Hawai'i in schools, and the number of fluent speakers declined sharply as English became the language of business and governance. It wasn't until the '70s that a revitalization movement began, documenting native speakers and teaching the language to new generations. For Chief of War, the casting process required extraordinary care to find actors who could master ʻOlelo Hawai'i.
'I was probably the worst at it, but we worked really hard,' Momoa admits with a laugh. 'Even if I was directing, my language coach was literally off camera, and he was the deciding factor of whether I could move on [from a scene].'
That same reverence for authenticity extended to the series' soundscape. Hans Zimmer, whose unforgettable scores for Gladiator, The Lion King, and 2021's Dune have helped define entire cinematic eras, was a top choice. But landing this particular composer seemed unlikely to the creative team, at first.
To persuade Zimmer, Momoa and Mendoza staged what Momoa calls a 'Hail Mary' pitch. They took a small catamaran out to O'ahu's North Shore, where the actor donned a makeshift cape and helmet and filmed striking imagery—a 'bunch of awesome little motifs,' as he puts it—meant to capture the tone and spirit of the series. They quickly cut the footage into a rough trailer, layered it with Zimmer's music they already loved, and sent it along with the script, hoping to give him a visceral sense of what the project would feel like.
When they finally called Zimmer for the meeting, Momoa braced for rejection. 'We were ready with this 20-minute pitch, like, 'No, but you have to listen to us… it's so very dear to us, and no one's ever done this,'' he recalls. But before they could even launch into their appeal, Zimmer interrupted: 'When do we start?'
The resulting score is lush and layered. Deep percussion, haunting choral chants, and soaring strings lend a sense of gravitas and grandeur to the show's most intimate and epic moments. Zimmer, who composed the show's main theme, collaborated with James Everingham on the broader score, which incorporates traditional Hawaiian instruments like shark-skin drums. The composers also worked closely with Native Hawaiian artist Kaumakaiwa Kanaka'ole to ensure the music remained rooted in cultural authenticity. It becomes a sonic bridge between past and present, helping build a vision of old Hawaii that feels raw, tactile, and alive.
A show shaped by fire and sea
Filmed across Hawaii and New Zealand, Chief of War is as ambitious in its scope and scale as it is in its storytelling. Guided by cultural experts and consultants, authenticity shaped every frame of the series. 'It felt holistic,' says showrunner, executive producer and co-writer Doug Jung. That ethos, he explains, eliminated 'guesswork' or well-intentioned but inaccurate choices. 'There was always a right way. We aimed for that, while also obviously accounting for modern times.'
Entire coastal villages were painstakingly reconstructed using traditional techniques. Canoe builders crafted 47 traditional Hawaiian wa'as—double-hulled voyaging canoes—while more than 42,000 feet of Evolon, a lightweight fabric prized for its strength and versatility in costume design, went into garments that honored the textures and designs of the era, including the feathered capes and cloaks worn by high chiefs.
The production was pushed even further for the show's more heart-pounding moments. For one adrenaline-fueled sequence between Ka'iana and King Kamehameha I, played in the show by Makua, the team recreated holua sled racing, a sacred Hawaiian sport. In Awhitu, a rugged coastal stretch of New Zealand, the crew filmed riders launching themselves down mile-long tracks of hardened lava on sleds scarcely six inches wide, reaching speeds of nearly 60 miles per hour before plunging into the Pacific. Much of the sequence was filmed practically, with cameras placed low to the ground to mimic the terrifying velocity and perspective of the riders.
Other scenes demanded something even more elemental. On the Big Island, 75 stunt performers gathered on the black lava fields of Kalapana to film one of the series' climactic battles. The land was silent, jagged rock stretching for miles, until Mauna Loa stirred. Without warning, the volcano erupted for the first time in 38 years. For safety, the crew consulted the production's geologist; filming went on as the volcano rumbled in the distance.
On the final day of shooting in the black desert, they wrapped production and celebrated with a small party. By the next morning, the eruption ceased. For members of the cast and crew, the timing felt uncanny, as if the island itself was somehow answering back, its living history mirroring the story they were telling.
When the past rises like a wave
With Chief of War, a story at once intimate and sweeping confronts Hawaiian history in all its peril and beauty, drawing centuries of memory back into the light. 'We wanted the story to feel universal,' Sibbett says. 'It doesn't matter where you're from. We all go through the same things. You can look at this and easily equate it to something like the Iliad of the Pacific. It doesn't have to be seen only as a Hawaiian story, but the texture is Hawaiian. The nuances are Hawaiian.'
The series may unfold in another time and place, but it speaks to enduring truths. It resists simple answers and rejects one-dimensional heroes. King Kamehameha I is both unifier and conqueror; Ka'iana is at once loyal and conflicted. Even the foreign sailors—some allies, others opportunists—have nuance and complexity. 'Any time you can present any culture with as full of the spectrum of human experience as you can, it just makes that culture more identifiable,' Jung says. 'You see yourself in it.'
At one point during the conversation, Momoa glances at his feet, silent for a beat, lost in thought. Reflecting on the years spent bringing Chief of War to life, his voice softens. Learning the islands' native tongue has, he says, deepened his bond with his lineage. When he walks through Honolulu's Bishop Museum, a shrine to its cultural and natural history, he can read the ancient words etched on its walls with understanding. 'It's slow to happen for me, but I'm always going to continue on [learning],' he says. 'My kids are learning now, and I look forward to growing old and being able to hopefully speak to my grandchildren in Hawaiian, too.'