Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This isn't one of Li's best. Don't get me wrong, his skills are as impressive and wonderful to behold as always, and the basic premise is really promising. It's the execution that's lacking.Bob Hoskins has some fun here, cranking his cockney gangster spiel up to 11, Morgan Freeman is wearing his "wise sage" suit again and Jet Li is fine, mixing rage and comedy with moments of pathos quite well. Kerry Condon is less convincing as a schoolgirl.The big fight set pieces are excellent, and Massive Attack's soundtrack was a good fit, but the story-line is completely absurd, the script largely awful and there's way too much hand-wringing and doe-eyed brooding between the action, but all in all it's worth seeing once, but just the once.

Danny has lived his whole life without any sort of normal human education, with the mind and personality of a young child, with only one lesson taught, how to fight. Treated like a dog by his owner Bart, which includes having to wear a collar, Danny has been raised to help Bart extort people, and later ends up in fight clubs, where he earns lots of money for Bart. After a car accident that lands Bart in a coma, Danny meets a kind blind piano tuner, who uses music to teach Danny some things about the world and about being human...Seeing that this is coming from Europacorp, and is written by one time genius Besson, you'd be forgiven if you shuddered a little with the thought of Bad CGI, pantomime villains, and an over the top sheen to the finished product.But wow,Mathis is the closest thing to Leon Besson has written in years, and you'd be surprised that it's not a full on action movie as the posters and quotes depict it to be.Yes, its action packed, and fans of Li won't be disappointed, but the best parts of the film are with him and his new family, and learning/realising that life finds a way, and it's not all cages and fighting.But what this film has done has given Li the chance to something that his other Hollywood vehicles gave him little chance of doing, doing some actual acting.He's brilliant as Danny, all innocent one moment, and then a brutal killing machine the next. And not just that, his ways inject a subtle amount of humour to the whole proceedings.Add the fact that you have two prolific actors playing their preferred parts, Gangster and Mentor respectfully, Unleashed is a brilliant movie, and maybe overlooked because of incorrect marketing.Its a touching movie, caring as much about characterisation and narrative, as it does about fight choreography....

Unleashed proves to the world that Jet Li is not only a martial arts star, but has the power to be a dramatic actor. As a result, he makes one of the best films of his career. This film is quite violent thanks to all the fighting, but the story has emotional power and surprisingly will invoke emotion in you if you like this film. I like how they took a classic animal tale but changed the animal part to human. It's inhumane, but a very powerful take on this old tale.Louis Leterrier's film is about a Chinese immigrant named Danny who was taken in by a London gangster at a very young age. The gangster treats Danny as a dog and he is trained to fight illegal fights for money. But after years of abuse, he finally escapes. He ends up living with a kind piano tuner. But things go awry when Danny's past begins to catch up with him.The acting is very good. I already mentioned Jet Li and how this is the best film of his career. But glory must also go out to Bob Hoskins and Morgan Freeman. Hoskins, usually the good guy, uses his angry scowl to be effectively scary as the gangster. Freeman as usual delivers a top-notch performance as the blind piano tuner.Overall, this is an excellent film that has loads of martial arts as well as some involving dramatic scenes. The choreography of the fights is brilliantly staged as usual in Jet Li's films. This is the best work he has done in English-speaking films as lead actor. I rate this film 9/10.

This movie plays out like some Hollywood producer felt that a pure action movie won't sell, so we need to add some fake drama straight out of the generic romantic comedy bin. Kelly Condon as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is by far the most annoying, but Morgan Freeman lowering himself to be Li's Magical Negro is almost as bad. Li just basically exists without speaking or having his own volition, which is such a waste for an incredibly talented drama actor. Hoskins plays a caricature of himself, but plays it very well; he and Dylan Brown are most of the entertainment in the movie. Most of the script is a rehashed mashup of better movies, and an insult to the viewer.The best fight scenes are all in the first 15 minutes of the movie, and they're worth watching despite the bad writing and hammy acting from everyone, but after the escape you might as well shut it off because the latter is all you'll get. You'll be weeping and face- palming for what the movie could have been if you don't.Watch Hero or Romeo Must Die if you want Li in genuine "breakout role" because this sure isn't it. Those movies prove that good action and drama can easily coexist, in the hands of a director who cares.