Review of Unleashed (2005) by Caesar M — 01 Feb 2012

It been a while since I've seen a movie with Jet Li in it, so I decided to pick up Unleashed and to my shock, it was actually good, and it wasn't from Asia.

Unleashed is about a man raised into behaving like a dog, escapes from his captor to start a new life, who seeks to reclaim him because of his unnatural martial arts skills that are triggered when unleashed. The story works, but it held back by some slow pacing. These so call "awkward emotional scene", aren't really that awkward I think. You know what I consider awkward, watching Return To the Blue Lagoon which has child nudity, now that's extremely awkward. So back on track, the story works and you actually care about the characters unlike Jet Li other English language films (Dolph Lundren in The Expendable is a good example), but it does suffer from the fact that a Piano plays a huge part in the movie and a grown man is treated and acting like a dog.

The action sequences are well considering it's a American Martial Art movie. I'm not saying American Martial Art movies are bad, it's just when you have "actors" like Steven Seagal never getting hit doesn't exactly mean good action sequences. Luckily like other smart Martial Art actors including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, Jet Li does get hit which gives some credibility to the action sequences. Also, I have to say Jet Li English in this is actually good as his acting always is. The supporting cast is great, though I still find Bob Hoskins as a villain not that menacing he still does a good job in his role.

Unleashed is a great American Martial Art movie with a good and weird story that works with good action sequences. If you're in the mood for a good or unusual Martial Art movie, you can't go wrong with Unleashed.