Unleashed (2005)

Released in 2005 under the title Danny the Dog in much of Europe (the American distributor, Rogue Pictures, renamed it Unleashed for the US market), this co-production brought together money and talent from China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States under the banner of Luc Besson's EuropaCorp, the French outfit that had built a reliable business out of polished but unremarkable action product throughout the early 2000s. The premise is an unusual one for the genre: a man kept as a literal weapon, conditioned from childhood to fight on command, who stumbles into a gentler world and has to work out what being human actually means. It is the kind of high concept that could easily tip into absurdity, and the fact that it mostly holds together is a credit to the people involved.

Behind the camera was Louis Leterrier, then still relatively early in his career and building a reputation as a director with a sharp eye for kinetic action. If you want a sense of where his career went from here, have a look at the reviews for The Incredible Hulk (2008) and Fast X (2023), both of which show a director who has never lost his appetite for large-scale physical spectacle. The screenplay was written by Luc Besson himself, which explains something of the film's European sensibility sitting alongside its more conventional action-movie machinery. Yuen Woo-ping, the legendary Hong Kong choreographer behind some of the most celebrated fight sequences in modern cinema, handled the action choreography, and his influence is visible throughout.

The cast is the kind of combination that, on paper, you would not necessarily expect to find sharing the same film. Jet Li had already demonstrated in both Hong Kong productions and Hollywood fare (see the reviews for The One (2001) and The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) for a broader sense of his range) that he was capable of carrying action films on physicality alone, but here he is asked to do something more emotionally exposed, playing a character who is essentially a blank slate learning to feel. Morgan Freeman, reliable as gravity, plays the blind piano tuner who takes Danny in, and Bob Hoskins, never far from menace when the part called for it, plays the crime boss who has kept Danny on his leash. Kerry Condon and Vincent Regan round out a cast that, for a mid-budget action film of this era, carries a good deal of weight.

Unleashed (also known as Danny the Dog) has some of the best hand-to-hand combat you’ll see in a martial arts film, fluid, brutal, and brilliantly choreographed. Jet Li is in top form, playing a man raised like a guard dog, trained to fight on command, and his physical performance is both powerful and heartbreaking. Morgan Freeman brings his usual quiet dignity as the piano tuner who helps him rediscover his humanity, and Bob Hoskins is suitably slimy as the crime boss who controls him. On paper, it’s a solid, emotional action drama with a compelling premise. The story (about trauma, identity, and reclaiming your voice) is actually quite strong, and there are moments of real tenderness, especially in the scenes between Jet Li and the young girl who teaches him simple human things. But here’s the problem: the quiet moments, the emotional beats, the dialogue scenes, they drag. They’re too slow, too flat, and often feel like dead air between the action. You keep waiting for the next fight, because that’s where the film truly comes alive. When it’s punching, it soars. But outside the ring, Unleashed struggles to maintain momentum. It’s not badly made, and it’s got heart, but the pacing saps the energy. Worth watching for the fight scenes and a few touching moments, but only just.

For me, that tension between the action and everything around it is the thing I keep coming back to. The fights are genuinely worth the price of admission on their own, and there is real warmth in the quieter scenes when they land properly, but the film never quite manages to make those two registers feel like parts of the same whole. It is a shame, because the emotional ambition is there and the performances earn it in places. If you are going in, go in for Jet Li and Yuen Woo-ping and let the rest wash over you. Sometimes a film knowing what it is good at is enough.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2005  | Watched: 2025-09-01

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Unleashed (2005) on YouTube

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Louis Leterrier: The Incredible Hulk (2008)
More with Jet Li: The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) · The One (2001)
More from China: Skiptrace (2016) · Men in Black: International (2019) · New Police Story (2004) · Police Story: Lockdown (2013)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)