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| Index | 10 reviews in total |
5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Better then Cristophe Gans' Version, 22 October 2004
Author:
himboy32 (himboy32@yahoo.co.uk) from Newcastle, England
'Dragon From Russia' Tells the Story of Yo an artist who is kidnapped
while fleeing Russia with his Girlfriend and her family, He soon finds
himself chained to a mysterious Martial Arts master and begins to teach
him the ways of being an assassin.
This action classic directed by the brilliant Clarence Fok is taken
from the Manga comic book 'Crying Freeman' and is one of the best comic
adaptations out there with scenes lifted directly from the pages of the
comic itself.
The cast is well put together Sam Hui handles himself well in the leas
role of the Free Man while Maggie Cheung puts gives a touching
performance as the woman he loves. Another interesting performance
comes from Jet Li's wife Nina Li Chi who plays an assassin fighting
along side Yo, which makes a refreshing change from her role in 'Tiger
On The Beat' in which she receives a rather brutal ass kicking from
Chow Yun Fat, but thats a different movie all together.
But one thing which made this movie spectacular was Yuen Clan member
Yuen Tak, who co-stars in the movie as both Yo's master with the rubber
face and Yo's assistant.
Each fight is expertly choreographed and exciting to watch, showing
that each Yuen clan member has their own unique and energetic style.
All in all a fun action film to watch especially if fans of the Crying
Freeman comic would like to find something different to that of the
western version starring Mark Decascos, which has to be said is a good
flick as well.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Fun comic book style wire work action thriller, 8 December 2008
Author:
t-birkhead from United Kingdom
First up I should say that I have never seen Christophe Gans' Crying Freeman, nor do I have any knowledge of the original manga so I can't say anything about whether this is a good adaptation. I have however seen plenty of martial arts and Asian action fare and as far as such films go, I'd say Dragon From Russia is pretty decent stuff. The complex (perhaps over complex) plot basically sees a talented young man recruited to become an assassin, who then does various jobs and and searches for his past. As the hero, Samuel Hui does OK. He has an engaging enough presence and handles himself reasonably well in the combat. The fighting uses lots of under cranking (speeding up) so does not give that much impression of the actual skill involved, but he is certainly good enough that the fighting does not use breakneck editing or confusing film-making to make him look better. The wire work and under cranking heavy choreography is by Yuen Tak I believe, and there are quite a few striking scenes. Though it isn't quite as elegant as the best work of someone like Ching Siu Tung, it nonetheless all looks pretty cool, and there's a pretty decent amount of it throughout. The villainry is led by the great Yuen Tak, who excels in multiple roles, and Yuen Wah also does good work in one fight scene. As far as the rest of the cast goes, Maggie Chung is relegated to a fairly uninteresting love interest role, while Nina Li Chi gets a good look in, and the rest of the cast are good on the whole. The film is mainly flawed by being a bit of a mish mash. Samuel Hui does not really convince as a hit-man, he just doesn't have the skills or gravitas for it. He is OK to watch but does not leave much of an impression. The baddies are quite good, but the plot is too jumbled to really give them much presence. I've seen this a couple of times now and the fact that you have to tussle with the plot throughout when it should be a lot simpler, or better acted so it becomes more gripping rather takes the edge off the experience. It also makes the ending less exciting than it should be. The final fight scene is alright, but not as good as earlier ones, which is a shame. Also, some of the humour in it is misjudged and silly and the more reflective, romantic moments are also a tad jarring. Altogether, this is good fun, and worth a look if you enjoy frenetic, sped up wire work action, especially if you can handle the issues that I have mentioned. It probably helps to have seen more of this era and style of Hong Kong action so you have some feel for it. Give it a try if this sort of thing appeals.
3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Some of you are Confused, 19 January 2006
Author:
Masta_Ruthless from Memphis Tn
Dragon From Russia is an excellent movie to watch. The Story of Crying
Freeman is on par with the manga it's self. I mean did you guys watch
the same movie as I did? Mark Dacascos did a good job, but the likeness
was really not there. Dean Shek did a good job in putting this film
together. The action was good, the comedy was a little bit over the
top, but then again so was the comedy in the anime.
The only thing that was missing in this movie was Bai Ya Shan, the
overly huge child minded woman, but then again who in the hell could
play that part.
For action and good story check this movie out. The average reviewers
on here are just waiting to hate something anyway. See it for yourself
and you'll know if you like it or not.
Me................. I give it 8.9 out of 10, that is only because like
I said, the comedy was alittle over the top. Other than that GREAT
MOVIE.
3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Awesome movie!!, 9 November 2001
Author:
Alexandre Bender (alex_bender83@hotmail.com) from Canada
Dragon from Russia is sort of a live action of Crying Freeman but very different than the french version!What struck me here was the action: there is a good amount of fights which were awesome, especially the climactic one!! They use wires in the fight scenes but they didn't distract me at all.(The Church scene is an instant classic!) As long as you don't expect action from Maggie Cheung, this movie will satisfy the average action lover!!........................................9/10
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Great fun..., 19 June 2006
Author:
Snoog from United Kingdom
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
From 'Naked Killer' director Clarence Fok, comes this adaptation of the
famous/infamous 'Crying Freeman' Manga. Although, this isn't a 100%
accurate adaptation, unlike Christopher Gans 'Crying Freeman' movie,
which I thought was pretty spot on.
The basic premise is here…man gets kidnapped by assassins, gets
brainwashed and turned into a precise and deadly assassin…who sheds a
tear for his victims (well, here he only does it once but whatever) But
Fok has added his own touches to his take on the story, like the
"Master Of The Dead" character (who I don't think was in the
Anime/Manga…all I remember was some crusty old woman), the change of
the girlfriend instead of a stranger being the catalyst for Freeman's
rebellion, and bouts of comedy.
Ah, the comedy aspects, do they work or not? In moderation, yes, but
for me, there was too much comedy here. This kind of story really
commands a serious tone, but when you've got Sam Hui being dragged
around by his feet every ten minutes and the Master Of The Dead looking
like the Wicked Witch Of The West...and sounding like her too, it kind
of ruins it a bit…for me anyway.
But, this is really a small complaint because what is the main
attraction here is the action, which is top notch indeed. Choreographed
by Yuen Tak (who plays the Master Of The Dead and Hui's assistant) the
fights are fast, furious and damn fun to watch. It's not all kung fu,
there are some car chases and the odd shoot out to behold too.
The cast all perform very well, from Hui as Yao Lung, the eponymous
"Dragon From Russia", to the ever great Maggie Chueng as his long
suffering girlfriend. Fan favourite Dean "have some more water now ya
bastid" Shek turns up at the start of the film to set up the kidnapping
of Lung. It's always nice to see Sir Shek.
Also Yuen Wah makes a brief but satisfying appearance as the masked
variant of the 'Master Of The Dead' during the scenes in Russia…why the
character is played by two people I don't know, I'll have to check the
audio commentary, but it's always nice to see Yuen Wah kick some arse.
Fans of 'Crying Freeman' (if they haven't already seen this) will be
happy to see a number of scenes wonderfully recreated, for
example...Freeman's first job outside of the hotel, the assassination
of the Japanese boss after the conference, and said Boss's wife getting
it on with the cop…although, it's not as rampant as it was in the
anime, and there's no 'erection/comedic gulp' moment…which was a shame.
I did enjoy this quite a bit, although I did find the plot a bit messy
and hard to follow at times, as things happen quite fast it's hard to
keep track. It's not a masterpiece, but it's damn fun. Worth getting
ahold of just for the fight scenes alone...
(Taken from my forum - http://sjcultmovies1.proboards23.com)
2 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Awesome movie!!, 9 November 2001
Author:
Alexandre Bender (alex_bender83@hotmail.com) from Canada
Dragon from Russia is sort of a live action of Crying Freeman but very different than the french version!What struck me here was the action: there is a good amount of fights which were awesome, especially the climactic one!! They use wires in the fight scenes but they didn't distract me at all.(The Church scene is an instant classic!) As long as you don't expect action from Maggie Cheung, this movie will satisfy the average action lover!!........................................9/10
2 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
A very bad adaptation of Crying Freeman, 18 March 2007
Author:
chrichtonsworld from Netherlands
To call "Dragon from Russia" a better movie than the Christopher Ganz version of "Crying Freeman" is simply wrong! Christopher Ganz's version is a real masterpiece and certainly compared to this crap! They changed quite a bit in the story from the manga: 1. the main character isn't a Japanese potter as it should be 2. the woman he has to kill isn't an artist but a dancer 3. the woman he has to kill is a lover from the main character's past before he became the crying freeman 4. they don't show that the main character is hypnotized. In this movie he just doesn't remember his past,how convenient! 5. dragon from Russia, the main character suppose to be Japanese,duhhh! 6. the "108 dragons" are a serious cult of assassins who put the fear in god of their enemies! In here the members and the leader are a bunch of fools who betray each other every chance they get! All of this could have been ignored if the action was top notch! There certainly is a lot of action! The problem is that with exception of a few action scenes the action isn't that special! The martial arts is average and too much wirefu which in this case is annoying! I really wanted to like this movie,but I can't it is just too bad!
2 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Crap of the 90's, 24 March 2006
Author:
samuelding85 from Singapore
It is forgivable for Maggie Cheung for acting in such a crappy action
drama, with her excellence performance in the later stage of her acting
career life, where Centrestage, Irma Vep, In the Mood for Love and
Clean makes up for the crap she acted in her early days.
The plot sounds like any other action thriller, with Yao (veteran HK
actor Sam Hui, unfortunately, takes the leading role of Yao), an orphan
who grows up with Yip (Cheung) in USSR (before it was named Russia) and
falls in love together. However, Yao was captured by a mysterious man
who leads a Japanese underground assassination squad named Eight
Hundred Dragon. Yao was trained by a weirdo on skills of assassination
and eventually, Yao became one of the top assassin. He was stuck in the
war between Eight Hundred Dragon and their rival squad, and he must get
himself out of the war.
The plot is acceptable, and the first 20 min of the film is good. But
after Yao was captured by the mysterious man, the whole film began to
fail. It continues like crap and ends like crap. The editing was poorly
done, leaving the audience with tonnes of question mark what has
happened. Explosion scenes were poorly done, dialogs were laughable and
tonnes of bullets were wasted just for the sake of using it.
Crying Freeman is also the film where you see female stars such as Nina
Li Chi and Lolita Lee, who are well known in HK for their big boobs in
X-rated films, in their pre X-rated film days. Their role given were
above average, but the direction leaves them unable to expand their
roles further.
In all, this is one of the worst production made in the 90's i've ever
seen.
3 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Don't Watch This!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, 8 May 2003
Author:
Karkuen from Scotland
This is a very BAD adaptation of the manga "Crying Freeman", the basic
story
line behind the film is absolutely CRAP! The fight scenes are poorly
choreographed.
Overall a extremely dumb movie.
If you want to watch a good movie check out the actual live action version
of the Manga "Crying Freeman", starring Mark Domasco
2 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Just...awful, 8 May 2003
Author:
yojimbo999 from Earth
I am flabbergasted by just how bad this movie is. It makes Christophe Gans' 1994 remake look like a friggin masterpiece. This movie has all the things wrong with kung fu films made by Hong Kong in the early '90s -- it's stupid, contrived, and completely mindboggling in its badness. Avoid at all cost.
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