Jagun Jagun (The Warrior)

From King of Thieves to Elesin Oba and Anikulapo, we have entered an era in nollywood filmmaking where our storytellers are realizing our superpower – the power of telling our own stories. These epic tales display a rich history while brandishing a wealth of culture around the story being told. As the latest installment in this line Jagun Jagun (The Warrior) does not disappoint.

It tells the story of a time when Ogundiji (Femi Adebayo) was the strongest of warriors whose name alone caused fear to reverbrate within the hearts of his enemies. Within his home, he housed a training center for those who aspired to become equally strong warriors and to join his people. Gbotija (Adedimeji Lateef), a man who communicates with the trees of the forest, chooses to join this training center in a bid to learn how to fight. The gods favor Gbotija and soon he rises up in strength and skills and is admired and praised by all his peers. Seeing a potential competitor, Ogundiji sets his eyes on Gbotija and tries to find ways to eliminate him before that happens.

Jagun Jagun is a beautiful collaboration of talent and skill. At first glance alone, watching the way a variety of Yoruba actors from Odunlade Adekola to Aisha Lawal and Yinka Quadri to Bimbo Ademoye have joined hands, even in the smallest of roles, to make a film like this happen is awe inspiring. And that’s only in the front of the screen. Behind the screen, it is evident that there is no dearth of accumulated talent either. This is evident from the skilled choreography of the fight scenes, to the colors and blocking of the festival scenes, to the music that rises and falls from scene to scene and the songs that lace the heartfelt moments, as well as the cinematography that combines all these scenes into a whole. Femi Adebayo in his debut Netflix production has clearly pulled out all the stops to ensure that Jagun Jagun is a film to remember and has scarcely failed.

The story behind Jagun Jagun, though, is the crown of the entire apparatus. Little elements of the story are built in piece by piece such that by the end when all things tie together there is an investment in the audience that is unquestionable. The story is layered and it pushes to teach a clear moral lesson, however, the time taken to develop all this is truly a test of patience. At an over 2 hour runtime, the first 30 minutes of the movie is simply spent in world-building. While the world building moments did elicit a lot of ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ that would eventually become necessary as the story moved forward, it also might loose much of the audience members. One can argue that the storyline of Jagun Jagun does not truly begin until about the half way point (at about an hour into the movie). However, when the story begins you realize the actual strength of this movie which is in its story not in the beauty.

The characters that are written would have been nothing without the actors that portrayed them. The leads Adedimeji Lateef and Femi Adebayo are steeped in the character and do a good job bringing them to the surface. There are many typical ‘Yoruba movie’ that manage to make their way into this production that would cause you to wonder if it truly was necessary. Scenes that are prolonged with unnecessary shouting and the incessant head ticks of Femi Adebayo’s character being one of them. Regardless, Jagun Jagun is not handicapped by any of this. Even the actors in small roles here are unforgettable. Aisha Lawal in the couple of scenes that she is given really grips the audience and shows enough heart that you find yourself missing her character afterwards. And Bukunmi Oluwashina as Iroyinogunkitan shines as possibly the most unforgettable character of them all. The ease with which she displays her heart and her pain and the eventual role she plays in the movie highlight her undeniable skill.

Despite all this, we are still plagued by little handicaps in this film. The graphics for one fails to go past cartoonish and enter into the realm of the realistic. The way blood splashes in the action scenes or the way hands are cut off or the way coffins plunge into the water is evidence of CGI and effects that continue to show that as an industry we are still at the stage of baby steps. The fight scenes, though adequately choreographed, sometimes are not captured with the same degree of expertise. The staging and setting of the show is beautiful and authentic but there are scenes (like the intro to the training center where Ogundiji is drumming in the center of the crowd) where its clear that the makers couldn’t quite figure out an efficient way to depict what is desired.

Jagun Jagun has many moments of beauty and brilliance as well as intentionality but that thread through the movie is broken up by little inefficiencies that continue to rare their heads throughout.