I love Jet Li. Over the course of many years, I’ve watched most of the movies he’s been in, and I’ve loved most of them. Even the ones I didn’t love, I’ve enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent. Sadly, this one-sided love-fest was not meant to last. As soon as Unleashed was unleashed from the DVD player, the whole sordid affair was over. I still respect him, and I’ll still keep a maternal eye over his movie career, but the magic is gone.

One could weep at the injustice of it all. One could hurl epithets at screenwriters Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen (The Transporter, Kiss of the Dragon, The Fifth Element); one could grab director Louis Leterrier (The Transporter) by his lapels and shake him till his teeth rattle; one could engage in a staring match with action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (Kill Bill, The Matrix); one could knock those blind-man glasses off the impassive face of Morgan Freeman (first stopping our ears from that velvet voice…oh my…), but what would be the point? A gross injustice has been perpetrated, and that’s only part of the story.

Someone is saying in my ear, ‘Just the facts, please, ma’am.’ I get that a lot. So here goes. Injustice, yes. That will do for a start. Talents have been wasted here, and major talents at that. We’re talking Jet Li, the martial art sensation of a generation. We’re talking Morgan Freeman, he of the velvety voice…but I digress. Suffice it to say that these two guys’ talents are unimpeachable, and to waste such major talents on such a dud of a movie is heinous.

Now don’t get me wrong—this is not a movie completely without redeeming qualities. Quite the contrary. This movie has heart—it is the execution that totally destroys the theme and the high ideals that were meant to be conveyed.

Let me start with the plot.

Jet Li is Danny, kept by his ‘Uncle’ Bart (Bob Hoskins giving a polished performance as a London gangster, his role perhaps the only well-drawn one in the entire movie) as a sub-human slave complete with dog-collar. Danny is literally unleashed when Bart’s business cronies do not cough up their payments, whereupon Danny clobbers them to a pulp.

When Uncle Bart becomes indisposed following a car ‘accident’, Danny escapes and comes across a blind piano-tuner, played by the delectably-voiced Morgan Freeman. Instead of calling the police or taking the injured stranger to a hospital, the blind man takes him into his home, where he and his teenaged daughter live.

If your suspension of disbelief is not jolted by this turn of affairs, you will have no trouble accepting different characters surviving, time and again, bullet-riddled car wrecks, and you will enjoy the rest of the movie.

Suffice it to say that Danny’s interlude with the piano-tuner and his step-daughter, while meant to convey the saving grace and redeeming power of music, common decency, affection and love, falls very short of doing this, and ends up being embarrassingly sentimental and very, very boring. As if acknowledging this shortcoming, increasingly violent and brutal scenes are introduced.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always associated Jet Li’s fight scenes with a significant degree of finesse (as befits a martial arts master of the first class), but in Unleashed, all the fight scenes are unbelievably brutal. Granted, he’s portraying a sub-human fighting machine here, and I suppose his usual finesse would be out-of-place, but I still felt Yuen Wo Ping could have fine-tuned things to some extent. To be honest, I was quite sickened by the unremitting and extreme violence punctuating the entire movie.

Now why would Jet Li consent to star in such a movie? Thing is, he didn’t just accept the part, he helped to create it with Luc Besson. Tired of playing tough guys and heroes, Jet Li wanted to play a very different character.

'I need to consistently challenge myself. I don't want to repeat myself. I want to continue to do something new and fresh. Luc came up with an idea that I liked very much.'

He was also concerned with the message he seemed to be sending out to his adoring fans: that violence is the answer to life’s problems.

'The feedback that I receive from all my fans is that all my characters are really good at "kicking as*." I worry that this I the only message that I'm sending to my fans. I feel that there is something more I should say, another more important message.

'One of the things I wanted to say with this character is that if all you know is martial arts, even if you have the best skills, but use those talents to hurt people, then you are no different from an animal……I hope to use this character to tell young audiences that no matter what skills you develop, you need to understand the value of life. Life, love, friends, family -- these are what is really important and cool. Not violence or "kicking someone's as*".'

As to critics’ complaints about the excessive violence, he has this to say:

'For example, through war films we understand that war is very devastating and it gives us a strong message that peace is what is most important. If you see a movie about natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, you see how devastating they are and you realize that you should really cherish the Earth and take responsibility for the environment.

'We cannot say that we want to see peace and so we will not bring up war or devastation. We need to have a method of comparison to really understand and value what is important. So that's why I use some violence to show that violence is not the only way to solve human problems.

'Like Danny, in the beginning, he only knows violence and is just like an animal. He meets Morgan Freeman's character and through the music and the warmth of Morgan's character, Danny…… learns about responsibility, family, love, and friendship. He slowly comes to understand how to become a real person and understands the value and meaning of life……by the end of the film, you will see his transformation to someone who truly exhibits human characteristics.'

Jet Li took his role of Danny very seriously.

'I gave my all for this performance. I worked with an acting coach for several months before production and spent lots of time in a dog pound observing and playing with dogs. I worked with all my heart and lived in this character for seven months. I was completely consumed by this character. After production, I had to take one year off to really fully recover from this experience. I truly gave it my all.'

Honestly, how can you not love this guy? He’s ethical, responsible and hard-working as well as talented. Fine, the love-fest is not over. I might not be able to recommend ‘Unleashed’, but I’ll be there in the audience, eyes shining, for his next one.




Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age