Jet Li has finally made a decent English-language film, and it's about time. After failing, over and over again, to make the transition from his superstar status in Asia to the Hollywood screen, and after appearing, over and over again, in dreck like Cradle 2 the Grave and Kiss of the Dragon, he's made a good impression on me. I'm sure he's pleased with that.

Li plays Danny, an attack dog. No, really: he's kept in a cage, fed scraps, and only let loose when his master, Uncle Bart (Bob Hoskins), wants him to kill or maim someone. And maim he does: he attacks with such ferocity, pummelling his opponents with vicious, repeated blows, that at times I shrank back in my seat. He's one scary dude, but when Bart replaces the metal collar around his neck, he's docile and vacant, blank eyes staring into space. He lives in a hole in the floor, his only companions a ratty teddy bear and an alphabet book; he turns to L for Love and wistfully strokes the picture of a mother holding a baby, then to P for Piano. Could this be a clue about his origins?

Of course it is—this is an action film, an entirely efficient one, and there are no throwaway elements. Crafted by auteur Luc Besson, this film has many of the elements of his earlier films, both as a writer and as a director. Danny, as the meek and nice guy who happens to be able to kill everybody in the room, is a lot like Leon from 1994's The Professional or even Nikita from 1990's La Femme Nikita. And his desires are the same: through all the mayhem around him, what he really wants is to create something like a family. And after an attempted hit on Uncle Bart by some of his competitors, Danny gets his chance.

He meets Morgan Freeman, who plays the entirely unoriginal character of a blind black piano player named Sam, sort of like Ray Charles meets Casablanca. Freeman seems congenitally unable to appear less than genuine in any of his roles, so even this silly construct goes down relatively easily. Sam takes Danny in after Danny makes his way, injured, to Sam's shop. Sam happens to have an 18-year-old geeky-but-beautiful stepdaughter named Victoria (Kerry Condon), who takes a liking to the laconic hitman, discovers that he loves music, and gradually gets him to open up.

These scenes, like the milder scenes between Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in The Professional, are the highlight of the film, and it's here that Jet Li finally shows some spark as an actor. He's usually a stern presence, handicapped by his unfamiliarity with English and perhaps a natural stoicism, but he's actually quite likable here, even, well, sorta cute. He's a delight in the scenes at the supermarket where Sam teaches him how to judge a ripe melon, and his first experience with ice cream is another gem. At 42, he's a bit old for Condon; the film seems to want to develop something approaching a sexual attraction between the two, and Condon's exaggerated youth makes the prospect a little unsavory. Perhaps this isn't what the filmmakers intended, but the scene where she removes his collar is so charged with sexual energy that I can't believe it wasn't intentional.

But we all know the idyll can't last, and Uncle Bart and his crew get their hooks back into him, this time with the threat of causing harm to Sam and Victoria hanging over his head. Hoskins's Uncle Bart is a real treat, a braying, funny jerk who wears a white suit so we in the audience can see the blood on it more easily. The part could have been a travesty of overacting, but Hoskins manages to make Bart watchable, even strangely sympathetic. They want him to fight in ridiculous underground death matches—a stupid action-movie conceit, yes, but it gives us one of the two amazing fight scenes in the film, as Danny, who has decided that he doesn't want to hurt people anymore, faces off against several gladiators bent on his death. Li's athleticism and skill have never been so apparent as here, in this fight where he refuses to land a punch.

The other great fight scene, which is one of the great fight scenes in recent martial arts history, takes place after Danny escapes again and Bart comes after him. Bart's secret weapon is a pale dude in white (Michael Ian Lambert), and he and Li go at it in a breathtaking fight scene in a toilet stall, of all places. It's sort of like the proverbial knife fight in a phone booth, except that they don't have knives. Director Louis Leterrier strikes a nice balance in the fight scenes between concussive editing and longer shots that allow us to see that Li is, in fact, a physical marvel. He'll probably be slowing down somewhat as he nears 50, and it's too bad that it's taken him this long to make it in Hollywood.