Louis Letterier is for real ladies and gentleman. Before popping Unleashed into my DVD player yesterday, I thought Letterier was basically a Luc Besson-lite, who will go on making cartoony, yet enjoyable action flicks like the Transporter series for the rest of his career.
After seeing Unleashed, I think the guy has clearly matured as an action filmmaker and is able to take the Besson formula (outcast male lead, gets mixed up somehow with a damsel/person in distress, then has to fight to protect her/them) and make it feel fresh again.
Also, Jet Li can act! I have seen all his classics and enjoyed his work, but outside of his physical prowess, I wasn't very impressed. And now, with his back being very injured, he uses a lot of stunt doubles in his movies, which takes his one asset out of the equation. But in Unleashed, he had an opportunity to play a really different role, Danny the Dog, and had some really solid character work throughout. While the middle portion slows down as they delve into Danny's attempt to find himself again with the help of a blind piano tuner (morgan freeman) and his white stepdaughter, it is still pretty enjoyable to watch even if he isn't kicking that much ass. With all that acting though, Jet Li's surprisingly girly voice becomes really obvious.
But, the real star of the film is the action. I respect Yuen Wo Ping, the choreographer for Unleashed and countless other classic Hong Kong epics, but his wire-fu techniques have been played out for the past 6-7 years. I have maintained that few movies he has done that aren't wuxia (films basically set in Ancient china with superpowered hero stuff i.e. Crouching tiger) have had some really excellent fight work. In Unleashed, he stays grounded in reality, which means minimal wire work. All the fight scenes were very nitty gritty, but clearly had the Wo Ping touch when it came to the complexities of the choreography. The close quarters fight Jet has with the man in white INSIDE A EUROPEAN BATHROOM was breathtaking.
I also gotta give credit to Letterier for shooting the fight scenes perfectly. I enjoy piling on Tarantino whenever I have the chance, so this is where I say that the Kill Bill movies were pretty sub-par for me. They were marketed as action extravaganzas, and the action was probably the worst part of both movies. The House of Blue Leaves sequence, choreographed by Wo Ping, and full of dismemberments was shot so unintelligibly that I had no idea what was going on most of the time. Now compare that to how the bathroom fight was shot in Unleashed. Wide shots, very few quick cuts, etc. You can see the fighters go at it. I guess its just an American thing. They dont know how to shoot "Asian" action.
I can't say enough about the action in Unleashed. It was some really top notch work and I am surprised it didn't get more buzz when it was out in theaters. I can safely say Unleashed is Jet's BEST American movie since his idiotic debut in Lethal Weapon 4. And all things considered, it can probably hold its own against some of his Hong Kong work too. I give this film the highest possible recommendation.
2 comments:
i second this recommendation...i loved this movie quite a bit. and one thing you didn't mention was bob hoskins as danny the dog's "owner," whose manipulative malevolence is palpable without ever being corny (although his lackeys are basic morons).
Yea good point. Bob Hoskins was FANTASTIC in it.
That guy doesn't work nearly as often as he used to.
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