Well there’s a headline I never knew I so badly wanted to write.
According to Variety, Nicolas Cage will star in the film adaptation of the comic series Jiu Jitsu, in which he will pummel invading aliens with his bare freakin’ hands. The synopsis of the comic, and thus the film, is summed up as such:
Jiu Jitsu centers on an ancient order of expert Jiu Jitsu fighters facing fearsome alien invaders in a battle for Earth every six years. Cage’s character and his team of Jiu Jitsu fighters band together with Moussi’s character to defeat the Brax.
We have so, so many questions here. Why is Brazilian jiu jitsu Earth’s chosen means of defense? Why do these death tournaments happen every SIX years, which seems like an arbitrary (and rather short) amount of time? Will the majority of each fight be scrabbling on the mat, as you see in most UFC ground-fighting, as the jiu jitsu fighters spend 20 minutes tiring each other out and trying to establish a dominant position?
Oh, and there’s this: How did Nic Cage manage to convince someone that he would be able to capably perform jiu jitsu in a film? I mean sure, the majority of Mandy was him covering himself in other peoples’ blood, but most of that was done via the use of weapons. Cage’s Mandy character was a man who was pushed too far. This Jiu Jitsu character, on the other hand, is apparently supposed to be a professional fighter. Who looks at 55-year-old Nic Cage and thinks “This is the body of a professional fighter”?
According to Variety, the film also stars Alain Moussi of the Kickboxer franchise, and is directed by Dimitri Logothetis, who directed Kickboxer: Retaliation in 2018. According to Logothetis, “Jiu Jitsu is guaranteed to satisfy the millions of martial arts and science fiction lovers across the globe with world class martial artists, stunt men go-to expert Alain Moussi joining superstar Nicolas Cage for some formidable, no holds barred fight sequences set in exotic Burma.”
You heard it here first! Nic Cage will go through “no-holds-barred” fight scenes against ALIENS, set in “exotic Burma,” although shouldn’t we be saying Myanmar? We eagerly await more information (and especially a trailer) for Jiu Jitsu.