“Jiu-Jitsu” Teaser Poster
Director: Dimitri Logothetis
Cast: Alain Moussi, Frank Grillo, JuJu Chan, Tony Jaa, Nicolas Cage, Marie Avgeropoulos, Rick Yune, Marrese Crump, Eddie Steeples, Tommy Walker, Ryan Tarran
Running Time: 102 min.
By Martin Sandison
From the soaring glories of the most fun David Lynch movie Wild at Heart and John Woo’s exceptionally exciting Face/Off, to the doldrums of the hilariously bad Wicker Man remake, Nicolas Cage just keeps on keepin’ on. One genre that the OTT thespian had still to try his hand at is the martial arts film. Now it’s here, with the fantasy science fiction actioner Jiu Jitsu. Will the movie be up there with silly action greats like Con Air, or down in the gutter with Ghost Rider? The answer is – sort of – somewhere in between.
Jake (Alain Moussi, Kickboxer: Retaliation) escapes an attack from unseen forces in the Burmese jungle, only to whack his head on a rock, have amnesia and be discovered by the American military. Jake is rescued by his friends, and the leader of them, Wylie (Cage). It turns out something more sinister is afoot than Army tactics, and the group must face off against an adversary not of this world.
I’m not exaggerating when I say Jiu Jitsu is one of the most bizarre martial arts films I’ve seen in a long, long time. The style, dialogue and film-making is intentionally (it seems) meant to jar and discombobulate the viewer. There is a lot of illogical editing, as if the film may be meant to take place in the imagination of its protagonist. This is achieved through scenes such as the person Jake is talking to changing position from shot to shot, and dialogue being cut away from and characters acting like they are in a dream. I noticed a parallel with one of art cinema’s great mavericks, Alejandro Jodorowsky, in these methods. While intriguing, the problems lie within the sheer silliness of the contents of the film.
It’s like a cross between Universal Soldier, a Jodorowsky movie and The Predator. One can see why Cage was attracted to the project, and he has a whale of a time with his limited screen time. His character is like the love-child of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now and Zatoichi, replete with sword disguised in a cane. His delivery of the babbling lines is hilarious, you just wish he had more to do in the plot. While Moussi certainly delivers on the action skills front, he is given little more to do than look bemused when characters ask him questions, which happens in virtually every scene. The rest of the gang will have martial arts fans turning their heads. They are: Tony Jaa, Ju Ju Chan, Marese Crump and Frank Grillo.
Director/actor pairing Dimitri Logothetis and Moussi are evidently attempting to be the new Florentine/Adkins or Johnson/Adkins of the low budget martial arts movie world. While their Kickboxer reboots were fun, they didn’t deliver awe-inspiring fights like Adkins films can. Unfortunately, while Moussi has the requisite skills, Longethetis relies too much on camera gimmickry in the fights in Jiu Jitsu. One sequence has pleasingly long takes, featuring Jaa and Moussi taking on heavies up and down the walls of a fort. There is some good stuff in there, but as with most of the other fights every second or third move lurches into slow motion, marring the flow. Also the camera moves in and out of being from Moussi’s POV, and along with a Mean Streets-like cam in a later action scene these techniques detract from, rather than draw you into, the action.
One aspect of the choreography I liked is how far back the camera is; there’s not a lot of choppy cutting, and in the best scenes these performers really get to show their skills. Ju Ju Chan has improved immeasurably as a screen fighter, and her kicking really gets a showcase here. Grillo is his usual grizzled, hard-ass self; Jaa gets to elbow, knee and inventively kick human and alien butt, and Crump delivers some sweet, flowing weapons and open hand martial artistry. Even Cage in some closer in angles delivers decent handwork. Mostly he is doubled of course, and the long haired wig and bearded look means it’s decently disguised.
The script department is where Jiu Jitsu fails. Characters come and go, with little dialogue and no depth to their motivations. The viewer is left action-wise reasonably satisfied but like a bad buffet meal, there’s no good meat on these bones. Cage’s character is the only one who has a little more dimension, and that’s mainly due to the evident fun he’s having. As I stated before, the depiction of the relationships and visual style hint at some kind of fever dream; there are some pretty visuals and nice compositions. However, if you’re a viewer that likes a good narrative and well-drawn characters, don’t look here.
Despite all of the negativity on display in this review, I did enjoy Jiu Jitsu. The main reason, of course, is to see Cage loving it and in a martial arts film. Ethan Hawke was quoted as saying he’s the only actor since Marlon Brando who’s brought the form on, and to be honest I agree. I wait with baited breath for the next Cage movie, and there’s a lot I’ve not seen. He has been criticised for quality control over which movies he chooses, and it would have been great to see Cage in an Adkins movie. Let’s hope that happens. Until then Jiu Jitsu is a reasonably fun movie, just don’t expect Face/Off.
Martin Sandison’s Rating: 5.5/10
in the mid 1990s Nicolas Cage and Jackie Chan ruled the screens with The Rock and Rumble in the Bronx. The new reviews for Vanguard and Jiujitsu remind me that that the glory days of both of these leading men are OVER!
I was hoping there’d be something to look forward to. (Unironically that is.) It’s a shame Jiu-Jitsu is imperfect.
Nic Cage is a real life Wing Chun and Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, so it’s a shame that he gets doubled for the fights. I was hoping to see him let loose physically just as much as he does in his acting.
Of course with the title, I was expecting aliens to be put in arm bars and triangle chokes. I guess that wasn’t to be either. I’ll see how I enjoy my rental.
Dimitri Logothetis just got compared to Alejandro Jodorowsky, now I’ve read it all!
I swear pitting certified ass-kickers against extra-terrestrial beings is a bad idea on par with pairing them up with hip hop artists. But it seems to be some box all of them need to check off at some point in their careers.
Since Cage went slumming in DTV land to make up for money his crooked accountants made off with, I’ve liked him in EXACTLY one and a half movies: The second and hallucinogenic-free half of Mandy and Joe, a film I’m convinced 1 and 15 other people on this planet saw.
KayKay, I love Joe! I do prefer Mandy though. Paul ha ha he’s a low rent pretentious Jodorowsky wannabe on the evidence of this movie.
I hope this gets a theatrical release in Asia.
Enjoyed the review Martin. I think you were too generous though. This isn’t a proper movie, rather a series of action vignettes strung together by a terrible comic book aesthetic, which as soon as a scene starts to make sense confuses the audience even more. It feels like a demo for a Sci-Fi martial arts film, an intriguing one at that, with some decent action as you say. Hopefully the real film wouldn’t star Moussi – his acting and screen presence is so poor, the alien had more character! Finally why is this movie called Jiu Jitsu!? A couple of grappling techniques are used, but the way the martial art style is described, it feels like the writers mistook it for something like Daoism or even Kung-Fu. Alright rant over, I’m off to watch Vanguard…
“ Alright rant over, I’m off to watch Vanguard…”
Someone’s a glutton for punishment. 😛
Looking forward to your take!
Couldn’t have said it better, Jacob! Alien being drops in once every 6 years and takes on Earth’s mightiest fighters. This could have been a perfect 30min action short, tediously stretched to movie length with some ludicrous and barely coherent script.
There’s an Army Intelligence lady who exits the movie as abruptly as she enters it, an asshole “Comic Relief” interpreter and I’m still figuring out who the hell Rick Yune’s character was.
God bless Nic Cage, whose every droll and sardonic line reading is an admonishment to the likes of Moussi and Chan who exhibit epic levels of Bad Acting. I consider Mr Cage as having fulfilled his penance and hereby forgive him for GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE, TRESPASS, STOLEN, OUTCAST, SEASON OF THE WITCH and LEFT BEHIND.
Honestly, I thought this movie was awful. I’m usually extremely game for stuff like this, but Jiu Jitsu failed me on nearly every level. Alain Moussi, while a talented martial artist and stuntman, doesn’t have the charisma to carry a movie on his own. Instead, he has to rely on everybody else to hold him up. The fights are…okay, but when the slow-motion hits, it DRAGS. Nicolas Cage is pretty awesome though, as he’s clearly having a blast. Sadly, this movie reminds me too much of Ninja Apocalypse in it’s absurdity.
I rented Jiu-Jitsu, and I thought it was decent.
The movie reminded me of a lot of direct to video martial art films from the 90’s and I tried to have fun in that regard. It can be hard considering what we know these martial artists are capable of, and they just needed someone like Tim Man or JJ Perry to work with them.
Ryan Taran does good work as the alien Brax, but I felt like he was only a threat because of his healing factor and not because he was a better fighter than the others. Often times, he lets the others beat him up, he heals, and then kills them when they’re tired. It doesn’t make for a compelling villain.
Nic Cage was fun to watch, but I felt like his stunt double had more fun than him. I would rather see Cage show off what he knows than have a stuntman do unnecessary flips and twirls when they don’t fit his character. I know he’s not a real life dynamo, but the guy trained with Benny Urquidez.
All in all, I’m not sorry I watched it. It just could have been much better.