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Features: DVD, Rated, Pan and Scan (TV Format), Aspect Ratio 1.33:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), DTS 5.1, Deleted Scenes, Interviews, Featurettes, Music Video, Spanish, French Subtitled
Martial arts superstar Jet Li delivers a break-out performance in the gripping, action-packed story about a man raised from childhood by a ruthless crime boss (Academy Award nominee Bob Hoskins) and becomes a violent killing machine. When a blind piano tuner (Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman) takes him in, Danny (Li) tries to start a new life, but his brutal past follows him, forcing him to fight back. Featuring breath-taking fight choreography by Yuen Woo Ping (The Matrix and Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2).
"Unleashed is easily [Li's] best, most consistently exciting film in quite some time." Jeff Vice, Desert News, Salt Lake City
"Unleashed...is top-grade..." Lou Lumenick, New York Post
Editor's Note
Martial arts superstar Jet Li reteams with French writer-director Luc Besson (KISS OF THE DRAGON) in this psychological action film shot in Glasgow, Scotland. Li stars as Danny, a human attack dog for a powerful mobster he calls Uncle Bart (Bob Hoskins, looking resplendent in white suit after white suit). When Bart and his men go out on their collection runs, they bring Danny, who has been trained since he was a child to fight to kill. When Bart takes Danny's collar off and commands, "Get 'im," Danny goes to work, an unstoppable machine, using the only weapon he knows: his body. But when a turf war ends up in bloody carnage, Danny escapes and is taken in by a kind family consisting of blind piano tuner Sam (Morgan Freeman) and his teenage stepdaughter, Victoria (Kerry Condon). They teach Danny how to be a real person, to be able to act civilly in society. They also allow Danny to explore his love of the piano, where a specific tune haunts him, bringing up repressed memories from his long-ago past. Just when Danny thinks he has escaped from his former life, he is pulled back in, but he is no longer the trained dog Bart thinks he is. Written by Besson and directed by Louis Letterier (THE TRANSPORTER), UNLEASHED is a gripping, heart-wrenching film fueled by the music of Massive Attack and a relentless visual style. And having taken acting lessons for the first time in his career, Li more than holds his own in the presence of such masters as Hoskins and Freeman.
| Features | Interview with Director Louis Leterrier | | Subtitles: French, Spanish | | Full Screen Presentation | | Unleash Me The RZA Music Video | | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1 Digital Surround Sound | | Deleted Scenes | | Atta Boy Massive Attack Music Video | | Serve No Master Featurette | | The Collar Comes Off Featurette | | Audio: English DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Director Louis Leterrier: Unleashed | | Extended Version Of The Film | | Featurettes: Serve No Master; The Collar Comes Off: Behind The Scenes Of Unleashed | | Interactive Menus | | Music Videos | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Universal |
| Release Date: 11/27/2007 |
| Running Time: 102 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2005 | | Catalog ID: 26364 | | UPC: 00025192636424 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English | | Available Subtitles: French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Standard 1.33:1 [4:3] |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"Li is action poetry in motion." 05/19/2005 p.85New York Times
"The infinitely silly, unconscionably entertaining action film UNLEASHED earns most of its juice from the martial-arts star Jet Li, the eminent martial-arts choreographer Yuen Wo Ping and the fine British actor Bob Hoskins in full terrifying lather." 05/13/2005 p.E13 Entertainment Weekly
"[H]eartfelt, heart-stopping....Bounding out of the gate like a greyhound, UNLEASHED needs only its first 30 seconds or so to elevate itself well above the average action potboiler." 05/20/2005 p.53 USA Today
"The staging and editing of several fights are tops even by the standards of Yuen Wo-Ping..." 05/13/2005 p.6E James Berardinelli's ReelViews 6 of 10
Unleashed is two radically different movies fused into one. On their own, each of the films might have stood a chance of working, but, brought together in concert, the radical shifts in tone create a weird dichotomy that will distract and disorient some viewers. As if that isn't bad enough, the storyline contains elements that are so patently ridiculous that you half-expect members of the Monty Python troupe to show up on screen to say, "And now for something completely differentÉ" - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
The film is ingenious in its construction. It has all the martial arts action any Jet Li fan could possibly desire, choreographed by Yeun Wo-ping, who is the Gerald Arpino of kung-fu and creates improbable but delightful ballets of chops and socks, leaps and twists and kicks and improvisations. Everything happens in a denatured sepia tone that is not black and white nor quite color, but a palette drained of cheer and pressing down like a foggy day. - Roger Ebert
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