Off-beat martial arts thriller. Danny (Jet Li) is a slave who has been raised like a dog by the sinister Bart (Bob Hoskins), who keeps him chained up and only unleashes him to use his martial arts skills in illegal underground pit fights. When Bart is injured in an accident, Danny is able to escape from his hellish existance, and goes on the run in a world which he can barely comprehend. Then he meets kindly piano tuner Sam (Morgan Freeman), who begins to teach him about music and what it means to be human. But Danny's new freedom doesn't last for long, as Bart recovers and sets out to regain his property. Luc Besson wrote and directed the stylish thrillers La Femme Nikita and The Professional; though he didn't direct Unleashed, the script has his trademark fusion of outrageous sentimentality and over-the-top violence. Hong Kong action superstar ( Romeo Must Die, Hero) stars as Danny, a man raised to be a brutal attack dog by a nasty gangster named Bart (, Mona Lisa)--when Bart removes Danny's collar, Danny pulverizes everyone in the room. But a chance encounter with a blind piano tuner (, Million Dollar Baby) reveals to Danny the possibility of a less brutal life, and when a retaliation attack gives him the chance to escape, he does--but Bart won't let him go that easily. The fighting in Unleashed is effectively jolting; Li and fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping ( The Matrix) have purposefully stripped away the smoothness of most movie combat (especially with a genuine martial artist like Li) with raw, unnerving results, especially when juxtaposed with the sweet and earnest scenes of Li regaining his humanity with Freeman and his step-daughter (Kerry Condon). This freewheeling cocktail of bloody noses and ice-cream cones isn't for everyone, but fans of both Besson and Li will leave satisfied. -- Bret Fetzer Synopsis 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 fuelled 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.