Pi in the Sky

Danny The Dog

Posted on June 5th, 2007 at 8:33pm by Pi.
Categories: Cinema.

Danny The Dog
Drama/Action. France/USA/UK, 2005
Director: Louis Leterrier
Writer: Luc Besson
Cast: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, Kerry Condon

A beautiful tale of a guy who is treated like a dog, and used for fight - with some of the best fight scenes ever seen.

Danny is a guy used by a local extortionist to make people pay. He has been trained like a dog, even wears collar. He attacks those whose his master and owner tells him to. And he’s a terrifying killing machine with his bare hands. But one day, he meets a blind piano player, and a discovers a strange attraction to music.

The style of this movie reminded me very much of Leon, which was directed and written by Luc Besson. Here, Besson is only the writer, but many parallelism arise between both movies. From furious bloody action to beautiful, soft and tender scenes when Danny starts to learn how to not be a dog and start being human.

If you liked Leon, then you’ll also love Danny The Dog. Although the story is different, don’t think you’ll just get a copycat. It is not Leon, but it’s still very good. The actors are great, and now you’re going to ask, “even Jet Li?” Well, this is a kind of Jet Li movie, with awesome fighting scenes, but there’s a lot of drama and emotion in it too. And the answer is yes, Jet Li can act. He performs very well as a heartless fighting machine, but also greatly as a naive, unknowingly child who knows nothing about life of himself.

I have to stress the importance of the dramatic side of the story, because that’s what makes this movie so good. However, I’m going to talk more about the action scenes. No wire-fu (well, maybe a little little bit), everything looks natural. Natural, but spectacular. Absolutely awesome fights, no doubt Jet Li has been a martial arts star from a long time, and he will keep being. His fighting and moving style (which is different for each character he does) is wonderful, powerful, deadly… Those fights are just jaw-dropping.

So, you get everything in the pack: action, drama and emotion, good performances from good actors (special mention to Morgan Freeman), and more. I really wonder why this movie didn’t do better. Don’t miss it.

My score: 7/10. Recommended to everyone, a great movie.

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