Unleashed - 2005 - 104 mins approx

This Action-Drama movie is set in the present time concentrating on the Glasgow underworld. Bart (Bob Hoskins), a debt collecting gangster, likes to get his money without any problems occuring. Unfortunately, no-one takes him serious enough to give his money to him. All of that is about to change.

Bart unleashes his defence known as Danny 'the Dog' (Jet Li). Danny, who is trained to kill if neccesary by brutal force, brings fear into the people who owe Bart his money and force them to pay upfront. The only thing that keeps Danny from hurting people, is a specially designed collar that keeps him from harming others and himself. Bart's strategy is, "You get the money ready the collar stays on, you won't get the money the collar comes off", but this is underestimated by one courages jewel gangster.

When Bart takes his money from him by brutal force he survives a wounded assination attempt on him the next day and leaves him for dead. This leaves Danny searching for help for his wounds and manages to find a blind piano tuner know as some Sam played by Oscar Winner Morgan Freeman. When Danny is accepted by Sam to stay with him and his teenage step-daughter, Danny experiences a new beginning for his life. He is learning the feelings of acceptance, love and nothing he felt since he was a child, being part of a family. Danny also is beginnig to remember what happened to his mother when he wa just a young boy when his collar is removed. But when one of Bart's gangster's bumps into Danny and tells him "Uncle" Bart is alive, Danny returns to the only family he knows. When Bart wishes Danny to take part in a 'Fight to the Death' copetition to earn extra cash, Dann'y's new feelings take charge and wishes not to hurt any more people. With this gesture upsetting Bart, he wants to find out who is filling his head with these gestures so he can finally put an end to it. But Danny wants to protect the only true family he loves the most.

There are terrific hand-to hand fight sequences involved with very strong violence, there also some comedy moments with Jet Li learning about life and experiencing new food tastes and word associations. This movie is a must for martial art lovers out there and has a applicable storyline to suit the movies theme.

My overall rating for this movie is: 4 out of 5.

hmm, not sure that's a review, or just a synopsis...



personally, i found this film to be poor, but it still had a few saving graces that turned it from being dire, into entertaining drivel.

with any jet li film, one will immediately want to know what the fighting sequences are like. well, quite pleasingly, these are probably some of the best that jet li has done outside hong kong. i suppose his performance as man who's been tortured, broken and treated like a dog for years is okay, but he's not going to win any oscars for it.

this is not particularly jet's fault as the material he has to work with is, at best, below par and, at worst, god awful. likewise, for mogan freeman and his annoying daughter, their characters are barely three dimensional and their role in the narrative of the film - adding a family structure to 'danny', when he's been seperated from his master - serves to add only cliched scenes of danny's humanisation. this is really schmaltzy stuff, that leaves a nasty saccharine tase in the mouth.

at this point you may be thinking that it's not worth watching this film to see some good figtht sequences, mixed in between a cluster of uninspiring melodrama: you'd be very wrong.

ladies and gentleman, i give you mr bob hoskins...

apart from the obvious, the main reason to watch this film is to see bob hoskins being a twat of the highest order; his cockney loan shark character is an absolute bastard and hoskins revels in this role. nearly every scene with hoskins is extremely entertaining and he gets more than he should out of a poor script.



so, if you're wanting to be entertained by the combination of jet li's (physical) performance and hoskins enjoying being the bad guy, then i'd heartily recommend this as a good solid slice of fun. if you want something more, look elsewhere...

Theres also a bit where Jet Li says "I want a piano" and it makes him sound like he's doing the "I want that one" thing from Little Britain.

This movie is terrible and sloppily made but at the same time it is a work of unparalleled genius.

Its set in "Glasgow". Why, one wonders, is the cockney Bob Hoskins operating out of Glasgow? Why are all the other criminals also English? Why is Glasgow some fairly identifiable bits of London? Why is almost no one in Glasgow Scottish?


Jet Li goes to these "fight to the death" events for a "select audience" One would expect an audience for these types of events to be made up of criminal underworld types, but for some reason it appears to be largely made up of people who look like Nathan Barley-esque Shorditch twats and people who shop in Monsson.

Similarly the gang that goes to kill Jet Li is made up of punks... In a U.K setting this makes you want to say "Bob, mate, if you're going to go after someone as dangerous as Jet Li you don't want to go after him with a group of people you've rounded up from around Camden Lock on a Saturday afternoon and who you're going to pay in super-brew." Why not go after him with a group of thirteen year old female goths and have done with it?

Finally the big-boss is a guy in a judo suit. Just a white judo suit like you had when you did judo when you were eight. I imagine that this was meant to indicate that he is a trained fighter but it just looks like Bob Hoskins picked him up on his way home from a club training night at the local leisure centre.

WHo ever did the design for that movie wants a chuffing oscar I'm telling ya', it was one of the most gloriously stupid movies it has ever been my pleasure to watch.

Good set designers then...it was filmed entirely in Scotland, Norfolk and France.

This is a real love or hate film...I loved it. It was so wrong it worked. And Hoskins back in Long Good Friday mode was great. And Jet Li's fights were a little more brutal than usual.

I liked it too. I didn't really see anything wrong with it, though. I thought it was a nice little story of good vs evil and it showed violence to be what it is: senseless and, underneath it all, unrewarding.

Mindless twaddle. And as such fantastic. Let's face it, Jet Li isn't going to be picking up the Oscar for best actor anytime soon, but he is a martial arts screen genius, so having him as a near-autistic whose only real skill is kicking the crap out of people is absolutely perfect. As for Bob 'Oskins, well, he was clearly just enjoying the chance to play a proper villain again, good on you Mr 'Oskins.

My overall rating is 4 over 5; great action scenes and the storyline very realistic;

I did not use the remote to skip boring scenes like usual ... (and that is a huge complement from me, the movie fanatic!)

Sounds interesting enough, may have to check it out.

The combination of Morgan Freeman & Bod Hoskins is something I have to see!