A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

One of the worst films I've ever seen. The acting was hammy and stilted, the plot and action scenes were amateurish and unbelievable. The cinematography tried to be arty farty and failed miserably. Avoid.

Yo Hinomura (Mark Dacascos) is Freeman, an assassin for the Chinese order The Sons of the Dragons, sent to Canada to deal with the Yakuza who are causing trouble in their homeland. When beautiful artist Emu (Julie Condra) witnesses Yo at work, she becomes his next target, but when the killer comes a-calling, intending to bump off his witness, he winds up falling in love with her instead.There's more than a little of the John Woo about Christophe Gans' live-action manga Crying Freeman: assassins and gangsters with a code of honour, an innocent woman caught in the middle of a bitter feud, lots of juicy bullet squibs, and more ballistic action and swordplay than you can shake a katana at. Of course, that in itself doesn't guarantee a good film, and Crying Freeman does suffer a little from an overly-ponderous tone, not helped by an excess of slow motion (another Woo trademark). There's also a disappointing lack of martial arts from its talented star Mark Dacascos.The good news is, however, that the positives outweighs the negatives: Dacascos puts in a fine central performance as the regretful killer who sheds a tear with every mission, the cinematography is great, the violence is satisfyingly brutal (and suitably balletic), and Gans balances the action and the romance confidently. The result is a stylish film that, while no classic, should still be well worth the time for most action fans.6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

This movie started out quite nicely, until the Chinese started speaking. It couldn't stop me laughing since then. The realisticity was completely broken when what the Chinese Mafia/secret society speak is Cantonese, which only people in Guangdong, Macau and Hong Kong speaks. But none of those places were featured in the movie. Additionally the Cantonese dialogues are really cheesy, and the stereotype of Asians being chain-smokers just annoys me. The same language problem happened to the Flight of the Phoenix where the locals were speaking Cantonese. There are way too many explosions, especially considering what caused them. The set where the main character was taken was poorly made too. I wouldn't recommend this movie if you can understand Mandarin or Cantonese, as it would be a laughing joke for you, like it did for me.

The title is a big come-on: "Crying Freeman." It elicits thought. "Crying" and "freeman," the two words seem to cancel each other out. But then again, it is precisely the nature of man's being free--his freedom is not absolute! Not only because all man's actions have dire consequences following it but also, his choices are already limited by his design, by his thrown-ness.That being said, the movie has great potential. It is supposed to play around that theme having creatively combined the two words together. However, this movie is so much unlike the anime. It is from the point of view of the woman touched by the Crying Freeman. It could have gone through the psyche of its protagonist--his battles within, the dissonant drives and desires tearing him apart--and it would have worked much better. Unfortunately, the movie stuck to the love angle, the hero and the damsel-in-distress story, and it drained the movie of all potential.