Unleashed, Jet Li's latest work, is an interesting collaboration. For one, the script was written by film director Luc Besson, probably best known for films like Nikita and the Professional. The action choreography is courtesy of Yuen Woo Ping, who has either directed or choreographed some of the greatest martial arts sequences in the last thirty or so years. To the martial arts fan, it is a tremendous moment: Yuen and Li have not been together since Li's Wong Fei Hung days.
It is all the more ironic that if you are looking for stylish martial arts in this film, you won't find much. Jet Li's fight scenes are raw and brutal. Don't worry; he still kicks ass, but only a bit in the style we've come to know him by. When he's punching them, it hurts sometimes to watch it unfold.
Oh, I haven't told you about a story yet, silly me. Jet is Danny, a human "attack dog" that kills efficiently and viciously. His "master" is some British bald guy whose name currently escapes me, who treats him like a dog and is more or less a bastard to everybody. One day they get into an "accident" (read: their car is rammed by a ten wheeler and is peppered with bullets) Jet is freed relatively safe. He is taken in by a blind piano tuner, Sam (played by Morgan Freeman) into his house and through him, his stepdaughter Victoria, and the power of music, the shrouds that cover his humanity are slowly unravelled. But the British guy is still alive, and there are more questions to be asked: why does Danny have an affinity to pianos? Why can he play this one piano piece when he doesn't remember how he learned it? How did evil bastard guy have Danny in the first place?
Jet Li shines here not with his martial arts, but his acting. He sold the part of a man who kills viciously, but still maintains a childlike innocence. He knows hurting people is bad, but it was what he was trained to do. When he gets a taste of what being a normal guy is like, he realizes that he's being taken on a ride by his evil master. At the end, he makes a decision
Plot holes notwithstanding, the movie is quite entertaining to watch. It uses nice editing techniques and I can't say anything bad about the camerawork. There was a little humor in there too that's true to Besson's style. All in all this is one of Jet Li's more unconventional movies. Yes, he leaps, punches and kicks here, but it's a different Jet Li. The jury is still out whether it is a better Jet Li, but for what it's worth, it sure serves the action well.
The Tai-Chi Master is vintage 1990s Jet Li. It tells the story of two Shaolin brothers, Tianbao and Junbao (Jet Li.) Junbao is, kind and good hearted. Tianbao is mischievous, gets Junbao into a lot of trouble, and is highly competitive. After Tianbao is wrongfully removed from a tournament to decide the students who will learn the higher techniques of the Shaolin, he and Junbao (who stepped forward to protect him) are expelled from the monastery. They wander into a province ruled by this evil Eunuch named Liu. The two brothers do their stuff, and meet quite a lot of supporting characters. Tianbao decides to join Liu's private army and become a high ranked military man or something, while Junbao decides to stay in this restaurant. Soon Tianbao becomes dagnasty evil at some point because of his lust for power and predictably does some dagnasty evil things, like, say, betray all his friends including Junbao. Eventually Junbao learns some tai chi and kicks the living crap out of his Shaolin Brother, but not before a few scenes of Jet Li walking around like a nutter.
The martial arts sequences are okay, including an excellent fight scene in the beginning involving wooden poles. It's not Jet Li's best, but it's good enough to be entertaining. One scene involves him and Michelle Yeoh (who is basically pasted onto the movie for the sake of it) seemingly facing off against a gazillion soldiers. Yowza.
Anyway, this movie is solid fun. It's no masterpiece like his work in the OUATIC series, but it's a very fun way to spend 90 or so minutes of your time.
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