Film Review - Jiu Jitsu (2020)

If you were to combine John McTiernan’s Predator (1987) with Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat (1995), add a sprinkling of Nicolas Cage, Frank Grillo, and Tony Jaa, and suck the life and fun out of the end product then Jiu Jitsu is what you would get. It’s not innovative like Predator, it’s not campy like Mortal Kombat, and it’s not as well shot, energetic, or interesting as either aforementioned film.

We are told twice throughout the film (and also in the film’s trailer) that every 6 years, a comet passes by the Earth, directly above Burma, and as it does a portal opens up inside a temple. Out of the temple pops an alien (who resembles a human wearing a rubber suit) and this alien must fight 9 “chosen” fighters. We are told that if said selected fighters won’t fight the alien, then it will “kill everyone and destroy everything”, and if the fighters win then the alien will leave the Earth, but it will still come back in another 6 years and do the same thing all over again. This story is never told through the point of view of the alien, so the audience has no idea why it does what it does; we don’t know why it likes to fight so much and why it is hell bent on killing everyone on the planet if the 9 chosen fighters don’t appease his homicidal tendencies. Regardless, films like these aren’t meant to be philosophically ponderous; they’re low budget martial arts extravaganzas, mind-numbing exercises in killing time with barely any mental stimulation. I write this with a heavy heart because not only did I grow up watching tons of martial arts films, I’d also practiced karate for many years throughout my youth. I love martial arts films, I don’t love this film.

Watching Jiu Jitsu is like watching someone else play a fighting video game for nearly 2 hours, using the same two or three characters, and never getting to play the game yourself.
Aside from the basic story outline that I wrote at the start of this review, the film’s plot centers around Jake (Alain Moussi) – a muscular man who is chased by an unseen assailant. He leaps off of a cliff into Pacific waters and bangs his head on a coral, providing himself with pointless amnesia. In this film, the amnesia serves no purpose except to have many random characters come and go and fight with Jake, and amongst themselves. By removing the amnesia, the film would remain the same except that we wouldn’t have Moussi play a deer caught in the headlights for over an hour and claim for the umpteenth time that he doesn’t remember anything, and that he doesn’t know who he or anyone else is.
Frank Grillo (The Purge: Anarchy/Election Year) is also in the film, and he delivers biting, satirical dialogue that is mostly comprised of “Do you really not remember what’s going on, Jake?”, “How could you forget who we are?”, and “Do you remember what the plan is, Jake?” He doesn’t do much, he doesn’t say anything that is essential to the plot, and he’s expendable, much like most other characters in the film.
Tony Jaa is also wasted here. He’d showcased phenomenal stunt work and tremendous, unmatched athleticism in films like Ong-Bak (2003) and Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector, 2005), but here he gets to kick and punch a bunch of soldiers (who’d all forgotten that they have guns lying around somewhere), and he also throws a few elbows and knees from time to time. His character’s purpose is to find Jake, bring him to his “friends” and then disappear until he’s needed again, which is almost never. There is also a small supporting cast that is comprised of unknown actors, but they are terrifically talented martial artists nevertheless.

…all except for Nicolas Cage. I must admit, it was fun to look for signs of when his stunt double was used, even though I know that Cage can’t perform those fancy flips and kicks. But the jarring transitions from well lit close-up shots of Cage’s famous mug to extreme wide-angle, master shots that depict terrific stunt work did make me smirk from time to time.
The film is directed and co-written by Dimitri Logothetis, whose producing and directing credits date back to the mid-1980s. More recently he’d focused on martial arts films that contain a healthy mixture of kickboxing and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), two of which co-star the legendary Jean-Claude van Damme. Jiu Jitsu contains (notice that I didn’t write the word co-stars) Nicolas Cage, who tries really hard to downplay his usual zaniness throughout the combined 30 minutes that he’s in the film. His character isn’t crazy, so he doesn’t play him as crazy, and his character has an important reason for being in the film, aside from being an exposition machine. However, the film doesn’t actually care about the importance of his character, so he ends up being entirely undeveloped, and that’s pretty much the level of thought that went into writing this film’s screenplay.
Now, the main reason that this film is a bust is its own style - it’s excessive and annoying. While transitioning between scenes, the film adopts comic book panel aesthetics, and for absolutely no good reason. The film doesn’t look or feel like it was adapted from comic books, so everytime that there is a cartoony transition, the audience is taken out of the groove. And the fight choreography, while good on paper and during rehearsals, is shot in a miscalculated manner, utilizing long takes in all the wrong ways. Punches and kicks almost never actually connect in movies, and it’s up to the fight choreographer and DP (Director of Photography) to shoot the fight sequences in a manner that makes the hits look like they are actually connecting. That seldom happens throughout this film, and it’s also rather distracting.

There are almost no redeeming factors in this film, aside form the cast who is undoubtedly increadibly talented; the fight sequences gave me a headache, the scene transitions are plain wrong, there’s barely a story, and the film is too long, clocking in at 102 minutes.

If you love Nicholas Cage and will watch him in absolutely anything, even when he has a tiny role like he does here, then you needn’t have bothered to read this review. If you love martial arts films no matter what, same deal. But if you ask me, I’d recommend saving these few dollars on watching anything else that Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Scott Adkins act in. That’s a good time no questions asked.

Jiu Jitsu will be available for streaming rentals and purchasing on November 20 ,2020.