Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

zmentor From what I've seen, this indeed is a good film to watch, I mean Mark dacascos definitely plays a good freeman in this film, the action was a solid B plus, and it had an amazing set of characters, but most importantly i like it for how it simply was more similar and more realistic to the anime itself then just creativity, usually copying story lines from something and owning it isn't good, but it's a good lesson to take and understand, for example, street fighter from 1994, a horrible way to influence people of the game, it was horrible, it didn't focus on ryu at all, the characters weren't the way the were, and the acting was horrible, Dragonball evolution, bad actor and no similar story, and I can't imagine what could happen if they even dare to make horrible films of bleach or naruto, so it's only fair, above all it is a very great film to watch and i praise it for that.

malcy700 I actually found this film to be very badly acted , and verging on the ridiculous. The unbounded taste for gratifying violence didn't add to the plot either. I suppose you could call it an action film with an oriental flavour, But even then was unconvincing.The thought that Vancouver had such violent Chinese and Japanese was quite a fright ( joke ) cars exploding and men dying by the bucket load in the main streets was enough to make me laugh out loud. When there is a water tight plot and convincing acting , violence can play a part. but over the top violence is a sure sign of lack of substance in the diologue, and this film lacked good diologue, twas crying out for a rewrite, Think I rather get my Chinese action from going to the takeaway on Saturday night. At least I would have something more tasty.

Paul Andrews Crying Freeman starts in San Francisco as Yo Hinomura AKA the Crying Freeman (Mark Dacascos) who works as an assassin for the Sons of the Dragon kills Takeshi Shimazaki (Kevin Ohtsji) & a couple of his bodyguards (Tong Lung & Kiyoto Matumoto) all witnessed by vacationing painter Emu O'Hara (Julie Condra) but Freeman lets her live... Jump to Vancouver B.C. where by a complete & utter coincidence Emu & Takeshi's father Shido Shimazaki (Mako) live, in a sort of 'kill two birds with one stone' situation Freeman takes out Shido in broad daylight in front of the court house & then turns his attentions to Emu who he just can't bring himself to kill so he has sex with her instead, hell it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Back in Japan & a Yakuza bloke type guy named Ryuji Hanada (Masaya Kato) challenges the Sons of the Dragon & in particular Freeman as his head will make him powerful or something like that...This French, Canadian, Japanese & American co-production was co-written & directed by Frenchman Christophe Gans & made by a lot of people with unpronounceable names both in front & behind the camera this is, in my humble opinion, total crap. The script by Gans, Thierry Cazals & the uncredited duo of Roger Avery & Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik which takes itself extremely seriously is based on the popular Manga comic by Kazuo Koike & Ryoichi Ikegami & subsequent Japanese Anime which I have seen but unfortunately it was back in the 90's & can't remember a single thing about it other than it was better than this live-action version. For a start it's pretty slow going & repetitive along with the fact that there's a criminal lack of proper over-the-top Anime action, there are constant dull shoot outs where the Freeman can shoot & kill dozens of bad guy's who no matter how hard they try or how heavy they are in number just can't even get a shot off, I hope these Japanese mafia bosses aren't paying these guy's that much because they ain't much use! Then there's the fact that at least some of it had to be Americanised with a couple of American cops & some of it being set in the US, the storyline is weak & is your basic inner struggle within a powerful crime organisation with someone wanting to take it over. I suppose Freeman is supposed to be some sort of anti-hero as he kills swiftly but also has some sort of moral code & predictably turns soft when the time comes to kill a piece of skirt who he fancies. It's all been done before & much better as well, from the rubbish James Bond style opening titles to the happy ending as the Freeman & his bird ride off into the sunset on a speedboat Crying Freeman is a crying shame...Director Gans making his full length film debut clearly doesn't know how to stage or edit an action sequence, this is really hard going actually. For a start there's absolutely no variety in the action with a constant stream of virtually identical shoot outs although there is some samurai sword play at the end which is the only reason I gave this 2 stars out of 10 instead of just the 1, the violence is tame & the blood very restrained with only one blood spurt right at the end. Then there's the constant annoying use of slow motion, seriously this film has more slow motion in it than any other film I can remember seeing. In fact if all the slow motion scenes were played back at normal speed Crying Freeman would probably run over 40 minutes shorter, everything is seen in slow motion from people running & walking to people falling over to people shooting guns from drink being poured to sex scenes there isn't 5 minutes that go by without at least something being shown in slow motion. Now this is fine when it's used properly but here director Gans just does it for the hell of it or because he mistakenly thought it looked cool & would automatically make his film stylish which it most certainly doesn't.With a supposed budget of about $5,000,000 this had a much bigger budget than I thought while I was watching it, I'm not sure where all the money went as there are no big stars or particularly big action scenes either. The filmmakers obviously didn't go anywhere near Japan & it was shot entirely in Vancouver in Canada. The acting isn't up to much I'm afraid, if you like happy stories Mark Dacascos & his co-star Julie Condra actually married each other after the film in real life.Crying Freeman is what I would personally term as a total waste of 100 odd minutes, I didn't like it & have no fondness for it at all. Disappointing as far as I'm concerned, stick to the Manga & Anime instead.

Tatiana Manouk Some spoilers may follow."Crying Freeman" is one of my favorite movies ever. I can watch it again and again many times. This movie is first of all a work of art. It is uncanny beautiful, in every small detail. Almost each episode I can watch through as if it were a picture of a talented artist. Graceful, elegant, very aesthetic - CF is a masterpiece of visual art. I fell in love with it when I first saw the starting credits: a wonderful katana sword turning and revealing the title in a flash: "Crying Freeman". And the rest of the credits, no less beautiful. I thought that if the creators of this movie could make the opening title so stunningly beautiful, then the movie itself would not disappoint me as well. And it didn't. But besides visual beauty, CF has a marvelous plot, actors and... Well, I'll simply say the whole blend of all things that make a movie is perfect in the "Crying Freeman". And again, when I try to describe my impression from some part of the movie, I can think of only one word - beautiful. No, even "fair". Yo Hinomura, deadly and elegant, as a katana blade. Beauty of death. And his another side - soft and artistic. Beauty of art and poetry. Emu O'Hara, fair and tender. Beauty of peace and modesty. Lady Hanada. Even she has the beauty - of pride and honor. Beauty can be found in every detail.And deep layers that accompany each Christophe Gans' movie... You might watch "Crying Freeman" a hundred of times and on the hundred and first you'll something you haven't seen before. I am very grateful to all the people that made the creation of "Crying Freeman" possible.