BJJ is one of the most effective and applicable martial arts out there but for some reason, it is seldom seen implemented in action films. While most action films employ the use of striking arts in their fight choreography, you are starting to see more and more films implement BJJ and grappling into their fight scenes. This may be due to the growing popularity of MMA and BJJ as well as having fight choreographers with legitimate backgrounds like we see here in this first example:
4) Lethal Weapon
Having UFC co-founder and BJJ legend Rorion Gracie on board as a fight choreographer for this film is about as legitimate as it gets. What’s interesting about this fight scene is that it predated the first UFC so most people probably didn’t know what was going on in this scene at the time. In the scene we see Mel Gibson put bad guy Gary Busey in a triangle choke that he uses to render him unconscious.
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3) Fast and Furious
The late great Paul Walker was well-known to be a BJJ enthusiast, having reached brown belt level before his untimely demise. His BJJ background comes across throughout the Fast and Furious series in all his various fight scenes. In this one against Vin Diesel, we see Paul Walker work his guard and attack with an armbar before Vin Diesel slams his way out of it.
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2) Oblivion
While Tom Cruise is not known to be a BJJ practitioner like Walker was, it was still cool to see him pull off a triangle choke vs himself in 2013’s sci-fi blockbuster ‘Oblivion’. Though the technique is a little off in this scene, as it doesn’t look like a very tight triangle, it still is always cool to see BJJ implemented in a big blockbuster movie.
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1) Flash Point
What’s cool about this fight scene between Donnie Yen and Collin Chou is how they mix in the BJJ techniques with striking like in real life MMA fights. Both Donnie Yen and Collin Chou are lifelong martial artists which is very obvious in this scene. Donnie Yen is even a purple belt in BJJ in addition to being a black belt in judo, making him a legitimate grappler in addition to his background in both Taekwondo and Wushu.
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