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Danny (played by Jet Li) is a human attack dog, owned and trained by a vicious loan shark (played by Bob Hoskins).  After years of abuse and conditioning, beginning when he was a small child, he has been trained to attack anyone whenever his master removes the collar he wears around his neck.

One day while waiting for his master's signal to come into the next room and do his thing at an antiques warehouse,  Danny meets an elderly, blind piano tuner played by Morgan Freeman, who treats him kindly and recognizes Danny's love of music.  The next day, after engaging in a steel cage match at his master's command, there is a car wreck and gangland hit on the loan shark.  Danny escapes with a bullet wound to the arm and goes to the storage facility where he met the piano tuner the day before.  Seeing that Danny is hurt, Freeman's character takes him home and tends him and feeds him.  Soon Danny has struck up a close relationship with Freeman and his step-daughter, and begins to emerge from the shell that years of abuse had created in him.

But can he live a normal life when he has been conditioned to brutalize and kill on command?  Is his former master really dead?  Will Danny's dark past catch up with him?  And will he ever regain his memories of his long-lost mother?

This was a very well-done, superbly acted, and surprisingly believable film.  I'd been meaning to see it for a long time, and a friend gave me a copy about a month ago.  It was thoroughly enjoyable.  The fight scenes are awesome - I think that Jet Li is the best martial artist to grace the silver screen since the death of Bruce Lee.

Anyone else catch this one?

I quite enjoyed it actually: it had some good action and had a few interesting plot points.

That and a soundtrack by Massive Attack which is always fun.

Bob Hoskins is great as the cruel gangster, he always does a great job being a bit of a prick.

That fight scene in the bathroom was particularly good: fighting in an enclosed space means it's really hard to land a punch!

I have seen this movie.  I loved it.  I like how the character evolved to know what is right and wrong and still have the skills to terminate someone.  I would recommend it to anyone.

Later,

John