REVIEW #29 Jiu Jitsu (2020)

Jiu Jitsu is a film directed Dimitri Logothetis about an ancient group of Jiu Jitsu fighters who join forces every 6 years to fight an alien soldier. This soldier arrives through a portal that opens up when a meteorite passes Earth every 6 years and if they don’t get the honourable fight they are searching for then innocent people will be killed.

CAST & THE ACTING (6.5/10)

I looked at the cast of this film and actually had high hopes, Nicolas Cage, Frank Grillo, Rick Yune. They were actors who usually star in pretty decent films. However they all play supporting roles and the main character is actually played by Alain Moussie, who’s acting skills were non existent in this film. The acting from the rest of the cast was also questionable and if it wasn’t for those 3 well known actors named above, who delivered half decent performances, then the score for this category would have been even lower! 

PLOT & THE STORYLINE (5/10)

I think the plot in this film was absolutely terrible, the film had no substance at all. The audience is basically filled in on what’s going on by Nicolas cage when he briefly explains why this ‘spaceman’ comes to earth to fight the Jiu Jitsu every 6 years but other than that we aren’t really told anything about the Jiu Jitsu, how they’re chosen or anything that could help give some flesh to this abysmal storyline. Also nothing really adds up, I was left confused and asking questions throughout the whole film. So a very poor score here.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS (5.5/10)

The first thing I noticed was the gun fire and the blood from some of the injuries, it looked so animated and almost like a cartoon. At first I thought that maybe it was intentional because they have a graphic novel theme running through the film but it just looked awful. There was some brave cinematography used, I liked how they tried out first person camera angles for some of the fight scenes, that looked quite cool and worked well. However there were times where they included some weird camera movements that I felt just weren’t needed and put in just for the sake of it. 

OVERALL (5.6/10)

That’s 1 hour and 42 minutes of my life I am not getting back, I actually think 5.6 out of 10 is being kind because this film was awful. The plot was terrible, the fight sequences were cringe worthy and not entertaining in the slightest. I thought that performances from Nicolas Cage and Frank Grillo might save the film but they had pretty small parts that didn’t really contribute anything at all. I wouldn’t recommend this film, there are so many other things you could watch that are 10x better, so avoid this one!!

Thanks for reading!

Callan