Jet Li (Romeo Must Die) plays a caged slave named Danny who’s been raised to act as a martial arts attack dog by his loan shark warden Bart (Bob Hoskins) in collecting debts from deadbeat clients. Whenever Bart removes the metal collar from Danny’s neck it signals a consequence of flashy ultraviolent action.
Set in Glasgow, the story follows Danny’s escape from his cruel keeper when he meets Sam (Morgan Freeman) a benevolent blind piano tuner and his musically gifted stepdaughter Victoria (Kerry Condon) who accept the traumatized man into their humble family. Li’s fighting sequences are unique for their street fighting style of realism and brutality in this film produced by Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita) and directed by Louis Leterrier.
Unleashed is a cinematic oddity created by Europe’s leading cottage film industry that consists of one man, Luc Besson. Besson’s script fits his signature narrative template that involves a tragically distanced character prone to violence but then rehabilitated by a stranger. But the gaps that occurred in the making of the movie are what give it its surprising curves that compensate for its frequent dips into sticky heartstring cliches.
Before wearing out his welcome with fight choreographer Yuen Wo-ping, who had just finished work on Kill Bill, Louis Leterrier defined the film’s opening fight sequence by using plastic dolls to communicate the action to Yuen. What the audience sees in that initial conflict is the most aggressive and ferocious fight sequence Jet Li has ever filmed. Li uses fast repeated right fist punches that send tremors of inertia through the audience. Danny uses head butts and tears out his subject’s hair with a ferocity that speaks directly to the seven months Jet Li spent creating the character.
After Luc Besson awarded the director title for the film (previously titled Danny The Dog) to his apprentice Louis Leterrier (The Transporter) the studio producing the movie began to shrink at the promise of it being too violent and withdrew its financing. Morgan Freeman threw a curveball of his own when he showed up for his first day of shooting and announced that he would be playing his character as blind. By this time Yuen Wo-ping and his team of assistants had taken full control of the remaining fight sequences, which, however brutal, don’t match the bracing shock of the opening scene.
Danny’s character represents a specific type of ambitious martial arts student who will only respond to the commands of his coach or master. He is a person outwardly doomed to go through life as a drone when he’s not engaged in specifically dictated routine action. Danny’s peculiar fighting style is like that of a wild animal that focuses all of its attention on one aspect of an opponent at a time rather than keeping a 360-degree awareness that’s practiced by martial artists.
The departure is jolting because it’s foreign to the kind of fighter we know Jet Li to be. Even his fighting reflects the differences of his character. It’s analogous to Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master where Chan’s fighting technique changed to fit the character.
Danny’s eventual escape into the precarious safety of family life is buffered by the classical piano music that Victoria plays. Danny’s childlike nature enables him to identify with playing an electronic keyboard that Sam gives him for the pure joy of making musical notes. The dramatic tension, between Danny’s innate fighting ability and his capacity for peaceful family life, goes slack because we want to see Jet Li fight however much the story says we should enjoy watching Danny get his first ice cream headache in the tender company of a young woman.
There’s an unintended ironic subtext at play about serving two masters that gets more dispensable dominion when Bart survives one too many sure death situations. Just when Sam has trained Danny to become his piano tuning assistant, Bart turns up to retain his long lost attack dog. Danny’s bi-polar character allows Jet Li to exercise acting muscles he’s never been allowed to show onscreen before and it’s gratifying to see the emotional colors that he creates.
In light of the odd mix of rare creative personalities that put their fingerprints on the film, Unleashed is a pleasantly puzzling movie full of gentle charisma and fiery action. The narrative connections are comically rough but the performances are heartfelt. There’s something special here. MTW
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