September 29, 2023
One night while attending a wild debauched party, Elise (Angela Morena) was drugged with a spiked drink. was carried by a masked man into a bedroom where she was sexually assaulted. When she stumbled out of the room back to the party, the other guests did not believe her. Riza (Alexa Ocampo), the new girlfriend of Elise's ex-boyfriend Marco (Jiad Arroyo), even mocked Elise and led in pouring liquor on her head.
This traumatizing incident would haunt Elise's nightmares for the next five months. One day, she visited a place where she used to spend time with her late father, whose guidance she so desperately missed during this time. Her pensive "moment" was interrupted by the arrival of Ace (Yuki Sakamoto), a young man who asked Elise to help him with the balloons and cake he brought to celebrate the birthday of his late fiancee Diane (Jela Cuenca).
The acronym "BJJ" in the title surely sent Vivamax fans speculating as to what sexual kink it stood for. The opening sequence focused on the faces of a man and woman on top of each other, grappling while moaning heavily. They looked like they were in the throes of lovemaking, but it was revealed that they were doing wrestling moves in a gym. It turns out that BJJ stood for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, a martial art for which Ace was a master coach.
The gist of the story involved Ace helping Elise move on from her PTSD by getting her into BJJ. However, it turned out that Ace himself could not move on from the death of his dearly beloved Diane. The rest of the film would just be padded with multiple sex scenes involving all of the main characters with each other. You'd predict that there would eventually be one wrestling scene that would segue into a sex scene, and yes, that really happened.
The role of Elise was challenging with her internalized psychological drama and physically-demanding jiu-jitsu scenes. Angela Morena gave it her best efforts, not really her career best performance, but she's still the best among this cast. Neophyte Yuki Sakamoto is not yet ready for the depth of his role as Ace. Cast Jiad Arroyo and you knew what he was going to be up to. As Elise's maid Blessy, Keanna Reeves looked very different from her prime.
Director Linnet Zurbano's positive message of woman empowerment was there, but there was a problematic delivery, like several other rape-revenge films in the past. Here, Elise seemed to have overcome her trauma when she excelled in BJJ. Yet, after all she had been through, she was still allowed to be fooled by a man again, and even seduced to have consensual sex with him, before she discovered the truth, fought back and won. 3/10
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