Thursday, August 18, 2005

Unleashed

I guess this is where Luc Besson meets Guy Ritchie, though exactly what so many mockney East End gangsters are doing in Glasgow is anybody's guess.

Besson likes to tell stories of innocents operating relatively involuntarily at the business end of other people's bloody urban strife . Leon was one such, and so was Nikita.

I thought I would never forgive Bob Hoskins for his portrayal of Nikita Khruschev in Enemy at the Gates, but he's superb here as Bart, a role that had earlier been offered to Albert Finney and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Jet Li also delivers, as both actor and wushu master. The film features Li's longest ever fight sequence (choreographed by Yeun Wo-ping), taking to a new level the ultra-violent Kung-Fu artistry we saw in Kiss of the Dragon, which Besson also wrote. I have a soft spot for that movie, and without really being able to say anything profoundly complimentary about it, I know I will probably develop one for Unleashed as well. It's greatest failing was perhaps the number of loose ends left untied at the end.

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