Crying Freeman (1995)

Crying Freeman is an international co-production between France, Canada, and Japan from French director Christophe Gans, based on a Japanese manga, starring Asian American Mark Dacascos (of Filipino, Japanese, and Irish descent), produced by American Brian Yuzna. That is a hell of a melting pot! This was during the mid-90s, when the rising popularity of manga and anime in North America along with imported action films probably made this seem like a solid business prospect. Instead, no one bought the rights for a United States release and it took 24 years for it to finally make its way to Amazon Prime in 2018.

Based on what I had seen and heard about it over the years, this seemed way more promising than most live-action manga/anime adaptations (especially of this vintage). Director Gans and star Dacascos went on to make Brotherhood of the Wolf in 2001, an absolutely bonkers genre mash-up dripping with style and some badass martial arts from Dacascos. Unfortunately, the movie does not quite live up to that potential. 

The movie looks good (despite a $15 million budget being slashed to $9 mil during production) and moves quickly. The people who made the opening credits (Sparx) get their own credit for the cool CG animation of the main character’s dragon tattoo (that holds up surprisingly well for something made on a budget with 1995 tech). Even in his solo feature debut, director Gans slathers on the style. Some of the imagery was so strong I wondered if it came directly from the manga (the hyper-sexual champagne bottle popping, for instance). It opens on Emu O’Hara (Julie Condra) painting the beautiful San Francisco mountaintop scene in front of her. This tranquility is interrupted by some Yakuza running through the woods who are quickly dispatched by a skilled killer (Mark Dacascos). He tells her his name, Yo, as a tear runs down his cheek, then disappears. She will come to find out that he is the Freeman, a title/role bestowed upon one man at a time to bring death to the enemies of the Sons of the Dragons. She also finds out the Freeman’s code requires him to kill any witnesses to his identity. Various criminal factions and law enforcement fight in the chaos resulting from the assassinations. The only thing they are all sure of is that he will come for Emu, although she doesn’t seem particularly scared (due to some tragic backstory that has left her consumed by guilt). When Yo does come for Emu, she invites him into her bed. Their passion gives each of them something to live for as the violence mounts around them. 

Had I rented this from a video store in the late 90s, I probably would have been pleasantly surprised. Based on some reading, this doesn’t seem to be a slavish adaptation of the manga, but it doesn’t ignore or seem embarrassed of the material the way so many other comic/manga adaptations did back then. It fully commits to being a violent action crime story driven by romance. The script doesn’t offer a lot to the performers, but the supporting cast brings some color to stock roles. Byron Mann plays Koh, Freeman’s handler. He doesn’t get to style and profile like he did as Golden Lion in The Man with the Iron Fists, but he has a significant role and a great weaselly mustache. Mako and his amazing voice show up briefly.

There are cool gimmicks. Freeman uses a different gun every time, transports them hidden in sculpting clay (he is a potter when not Freemanning). Afterwards, he disposes of them by inserting a special ammo clip that explodes. During public assassinations he wears a nifty mask (guess he assumed no random painters would be in the woods during that maskless opening scene).

The big problem here is the action. It brings some Hong Kong energy to the movement and pyrotechnics but is lacking in any detailed choreography or destruction. There are multiple scenes where Freeman takes on a bunch of gunmen and all he does is roll or flip around an open space shooting them while they miss him. He never hides behind cover while it gets blown to pieces in a satisfying way. He doesn’t roll around/under/over things, there is no table flipping, chair kicking, rail-sliding, or using the environment for defense/offense. Dacascos also doesn’t get many hand-to-hand opportunities to use his martial arts skills. I feel like this might be the result of the aforementioned budget issue that cut the shooting schedule short. Also, despite the obvious Hong Kong influence, they don’t get as crazy with the violence. Maybe it was because they wanted to sell it internationally (or the budget again), but the quality and quantity of blood is lacking. The mediocre action might have popped a little more with some nice bloody or chunky squibs. And I will make one completely shallow complaint: during the sex scene the camera takes a loving look at all of that Dacasc-ass (no hate, dude was looking ridiculous here), but we get no nudity from the gorgeous Julie Condra. 

What should have been a stylish sex and violence epic ends up feeling smaller and not sexy or violent enough. If the action itself was a stylish as the rest of the direction, this could have been a hidden gem like Drive (1997), the previous Dacascos film I watched that was buried on release. Instead, it is an interesting curiosity that I will remember more for the champagne spray than the blood spray.