Peter Day Atanley
The Nigerian movie industry as a whole or Nollywood as the case may be has come a long way, most especially on the production quality of recent movies such as Sista, Battle at Buca street, Anikulapo, Elesin Oba and other blockbusters that has graced our screen this year.
Three days ago, Netflix released yet another blockbuster titled Jagun Jagun, the warrior, much to the admiration of movie lovers all over the world.
The movie sits at number 4 on the most watched list on Netflix and just Within 48 hours of its release on the streaming platform it began to trend in the United Kingdom and seventeen other countries. It has so far gathered both positive and negative reviews on various social media platforms most especially here in Nigeria.
The movie was produced by Femi Adebayo and directed Tope Adebayo and by veteran Nollywood actor and director Adebayo Salami. The director of photography was handled by another top Nollywood cinematographer Adeoluwa Owu.
The movie featured an ensemble Cast of Femi Adebayo, Lateef Adedimeji, Odunlade Adekola, İbrahim Yekini Itele, Bukunmi Oluwashina, Adebayo Salami, Fathia Balogun, Muyiwa Ademola, Yinka Quadri, Debo Adedayo(Mr macaroni) and Aishat Lawal.
The movie
Jagun Jagun, though not being a historically accurate movie, has all the elements of history among the Yoruba people especially in how they present the culture and traditions of the time through, incantations, alliterations, proverbs and attire. The names of the villages used in the movie such as Aje, Keto, Modede, Gbogungo and iwon are also real places in the old oyo empire.
The Epic movie is centered around two major characters. Gbotija, a trainee warrior, played by Lateef Adedimeji and Oguntiji, a vicious warlock, played by Femi Adebayo.
It tells the story of Gbotija who arrived at a warrior camp with a desire to learn how to fight in order to avenge the death of his father and to protect his village from invaders. But not too long, with one event leading to another he became a threat by the leader of the camp, Who, in order to get rid of him in the guise of giving him a promotion, decided to put him on Three insurmountable tasks. Such as entering into a fight to death contest with Gboogunmi, sleeping in a coffin for seven days without eating or drinking and thirdly to attack an innocent village on the day of their annual festival.
Although the movie plot has some weakness, especially on how it flows from each scene, it was still able to convey the events it wanted to potrays without breaking the flow of the storyline.
The acting
The acting is not the best I've seen from the actors in recent movies. But the costume, settings and the use of lightning helps in places where a character fails to handle a particular action very well.
Some of the actors that handled their role well are Femi Adebayo's character Oguntiji, Gbotija (Adedimeji) and his love interest, agemo/kitan, played by Bukumi Oluwashina.
Lighting and cinematography
This is the part where I rank the movie the most, the lighting and cinematography are top notch and highly recommendable.
The fighting scenes are well orchestrated and choreographed, the stunt arrangements are well coordinated, although I believe there is still room for more improvement.
Another aspect I really enjoyed watching is the fight scenes, especially the handling of the horses, the use of drones, the camera angle and most especially the effects deployed in the stabbing and slashing of throats. Although I feel there's still a lot to be done about the use of visual effects, not just in Jagun Jagun, but in most Nollywood movies.
The soundtrack
Another aspect of the movie that I really enjoyed was the use of various traditional Yoruba songs to enhance the atmosphere of each scene.
The songs really played an important role on how it was used to ease or heighten each scene in the movie.
Most of the songs in the movie are produced by popular Yoruba music producer Tolu Obanro.
Overall the movie is a delight to watch and I would recommend it to everyone who loves epic movies such as King of thieves and Eleshin Oba.
The movie is currently streaming on Netflix.
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