Unleashed

Louis Leterrier directs a Luc Besson script that Besson produced with Jet Li, who also stars. The story is set in Glasgow and was shot there, so the cell Bart locks Danny in and the pianos Sam tunes sit in one city. Yuen Woo-ping choreographed the fights; Pierre Morel shot them. The piano solo in several scenes is the Andante grazioso from Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11. Massive Attack wrote the score and the album came first, released on 11 October 2004 as “Danny the Dog”; the film opened in France under that title on 2 February 2005. Virgin reissued it in 2005 as “Unleashed” with 2 extra tracks produced by RZA, and “Aftersun”, the Dot Allison song over the end credits, is on neither version. Two boards read it very differently. France’s CNC set a 12 limit, naming the scenes of violence and humiliation; the BBFC in Britain gave it an 18, noting “contains strong violence”. It opened third in North America with $10.9 million from 1,957 theatres. A good fit if you want the fighting tied to a collar going on and coming off, with the stretches between built around a piano. Not for anyone who cannot sit through a man kept and chained like an animal; the French board named those scenes when setting its limit.