Unleashed
As a fan of kung fu movies, I’m always interested in anything Jet Li does. Unfortunately, since he’s come to America, most of what he does is crap. There were some bright spots (I liked The One because he used actual kung fu techniques), but most of it hasn’t been of the same caliber of his Hong Kong output. I recently was able to check out both the unrated and rated versions of Unleashed. The question is, is it any good?
Unleashed is about a man named Danny, played by Jet Li. Danny is, for almost all intents and purposes, a dog (by the way, outside of America Unleashed was known by the superior title, Danny the Dog). He lives in a cage, eats food cold out of a can with his hands, and wears a collar. He exists to do the bidding of his master Bart (played by Bob Hoskins). Bart is a loan shark of some sort, and he uses Danny as his muscle. Whenever anyone refuses to pay, Bart takes the collar off Danny and tells him to “get ‘em”, then he sits back and watches Danny beat the living crap out of everyone. Danny only stops when Bart tells him to. Existing like this, Danny is barely human. He rarely talks, and never thinks for himself, shown in one scene where one of the debtors incapacitates Bart before he can take the collar off. Danny stands there and watches them beat up Bart and the rest of his crew, not even reacting when the debtor tells his goons “When you’re done with the master, kill the dog.” However, when Bart does manage to get the collar off, Danny becomes a fighting machine, destroying everyone who threatens his master.
To prevent that from happening again, Bart tries to teach Danny to react to a new stimulus, a blinking light. This collection happens to be at an antique piano warehouse, and for some reason Danny is drawn to the pianos. It is while waiting for this light to blink Danny meets Sam (Morgan Freeman, one of those actors who makes anything he’s in better just by being in it), a blind piano tuner. Sam comes to the warehouse to tune the pianos, and he starts talking to Danny. At first, Danny is reluctant to talk, but soon begins warming up to him. This is cut abruptly short, however, once Danny realized he missed the light blinking, which makes Bart furious.
Bart begins using Danny in a series of underground fights, and after making a great deal of money he offers Danny a treat. Danny says that he wants a piano, and steadfastly sticks to this desire even though Bart offers him other things he’s never had, such as a woman. However, at that moment a previous debtor takes revenge on Bart, smashing into his car with a semi truck and shooting it full of holes. Danny escapes this and makes his way back to the piano warehouse, where he finds Sam. Sam takes him in and treats his wounds. Here Danny sees the opposite of life with Bart. Sam and his stepdaughter Victoria are a loving family, and with their help Danny begins to learn what it means to be human.
I won’t give any more of the plot away. I’ll just say that it’s worth checking out just to see Jet Li’s performance. The man can act, which is no secret to those who have seen his most recent Hong Kong effort, Hero. However, this is the first chance Jet is given to flex his acting muscles in an English-speaking role, and he performs well. My fiancée stated that she likes these kinds of movies because they make you appreciate the little things in life, and this one does. Whether it’s shopping for groceries, eating ice cream, or a “ripe” kiss, Jet Li does a good job of making it seem like he’s experiencing all this for the first time. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not going to win an Oscar here, but it’s the best acting he’s done in English yet. And as I stated earlier, Morgan freeman turns in a fine performance. He’s so perfect for these grandfatherly types of roles that you wish he were a member of your family. Conversely, Bob Hoskins is devilish as Bart. Using his natural British accent, he’s so vicious you wouldn’t recognize him if all you’ve seen him in is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. All in all, the actors give good performances.
Not everything in the movie works, though. I thought that the fight scenes, of all things, were the weakest link. In a Jet Li movie those are usually the only worthwhile bits, but here I think they detract. They’re choreographed in the wire fu style that has been popular in American action martial arts movies ever since The Matrix hit big. If anyone can pull that off, it’s Jet Li (especially since most of the fights in The Matrix were just copied from Tai Chi Master, AKA Twin Warriors here in the states, and Fist of Legend), but the fault isn’t in the technical aspects of the fighting. It’s that the rest of the movie tries so hard to be serious and moving, that the surreal fight scenes don’t fit in. One pit fight in particular was so over the top that it almost pulled me out of the movie. It’s just so ridiculously unbelievable, it seems like it belongs in another movie. Another complaint is the gratuitous nudity. In both the rated and unrated versions of the film, there are a couple of unneeded flashes of women’s breasts, even though in the scene immediately before and afterward they’re still wearing a bra. It seems like an editing mistake. And one scene during a fight at the end, Jet Li and another fighter battle their way all over a building, including through a woman’s bathroom while she’s taking a shower. It does lead to some nice close-quarters sparring, but the woman was completely unnecessary. I can just envision some idiotic Hollywood exec going “If we want to get these morons into the theater this movie needs boobs!” It doesn’t add anything worthwhile and, like some of the action scenes, doesn’t fit in with the rest of the movie.
One thing I would like to point out is one of the most puzzling differences between the unrated and the rated versions of the movie. Usually, when there’s an unrated version of the movie, it just means more bad language and a few boobs. I did notice that the unrated version did have one more boob shot, but it also had a slightly different ending. I’m going to talk about the ending, so I should put a ****Spoiler Warning**** here. In the rated version, the last scene is of Danny’s memory of his mother playing piano, brought forth by music Victoria is playing. In the unrated version the last shot is of Danny crying because the music he’s listening to is so beautiful. At one point in the movie, Sam mentions that Danny acts so cut of from his emotions it’s as if he doesn’t have any at all. The final scene of him crying shows his complete transformation into an actual human being. For some reason, the rated version leaves this last scene off, and takes away some of the feeling of completion of the movie. It’s a very subtle but major change, and I don’t understand why a rated cut would drop that off. ****End Spoilers****
All told, Unleashed is a good movie. It’s definitely worthwhile for any Jet Li fan, and better than most of his earlier American movies (Romeo Must Die, I’m looking at you). I wouldn’t say it’s as good an action movie as some of his Hong Kong output, but this film is a different beast. It’s a direction I would like to see Jet Li take more often, because God knows he deserves to be bigger here than he is.
