http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=6523

Here in Luxemburg, DANNY THE DOG was released on Friday (like in France), so yesterday I headed to our cinema to check it out, and wow, was I surprised with this movie. Read my review here (and sorry, I'm just a European student with 23 years so my English ain't all that and the grammatical faults are not very rare, so here is what I thought:

What a difference from Li’s previous films!!! But I mean that in a very good way. Well, first off all, if you’re going into this movie expecting a martial arts festival, I have to disappoint you. This movie focuses more on the dramatic storyline, then rather on spectacular fights. Nonetheless very impressive fights are in the movie, it is the storyline between Danny (Jet Li), Bart (Bob Hoskins), Sam (Morgan Freeman) and Victoria (Kerry Condon) that keeps you in the movie. This movie is mainly a drama/martial arts movie and no crime/action/thriller like Imdb shows you. Honestly I haven't seen much of Hoskins’ movies in the past, but believe me the main reasons that keeps you into the movie are the very fine performances from Jet Li and Bob Hoskins. Both of 'em are wonderful.

Another plus to this movie are the sound effects. They are realistic as hell. In most of the fight movies you hear some weird sounds coming when they hit one another; well this one were so brutally real that I thought, “Wow, they are killing each other out there”. The fights are few, but very spectacular and somewhat brutal. The first two fights are excellent because they are shot very realistic and with a fast paced camera, the last fights are more graphical and slowly filmed. But as I watched the first two fights I was impressed with how everybody involved in the fight sequences, did such a wonderful job on letting them look brutal and realistic. Every time Li hits somebody I sat there feeling the brutalized hits, which let's you get the feeling that you're in the fights (not literally, but it lets you feel the hits).

Director Louis Leterrier also did a very good job filming this movie. The fight scenes are not too quick, so that you can see everything and the dramatic scenes are shot with the right amount of heart to keep the spectator engaged in the movie. But be aware after the first two fights, is a great hole which is filled with 40-50 mins of storyline, which didn't bother me, but I can imagine that people will go into this movie expecting something like ROMEO MUST DIE, TWIN WARRIORS or FIST OF LEGEND and be heavily disappointed, because this movie focuses more on its engaging storyline. So please enter the theater with this in mind and you will love this movie.

One thing that actually bothers me is the American way of promoting the movie. As always they will promote the movie as one of Li's new martial arts festival, with non-stop ass-kicking from Li but please always keep in mind, Li is more acting than fighting in this movie!! It is a drama with martial arts elements in it. Don't be fooled by American distributors!!!!!

9/10


Sounds good

I'm really looking forward to this movie. I've had the soundtrack since November (done by Massive Attack) and it's amazing. Just by listening to it you can tell that there will be a lot of quieter moments in the film and that review seems to confirm this. The casting of Hoskins and Freeman give me confidence that these dramatic scenes will deliver and will complement the ass-kicking to deliver something that truly stands out.

I can't wait to see this!

Could it be a sleeper hit?