Review of Crying Freeman (1995) by Lateshia T — 11 May 2005

[font=Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif][size=2]Superb low budget film that took Europe by storm upon its release 8 years ago, but as yet has not been released in America. This is shocking because this is a very good action movie.

So how does this movie shot for a reputed 5 million dollars, stand up to big budget Hollywood movies? Well to start with it has remembered key facts like story and character, artistry, atmosphere. This is not simply a series of explosions, interspersed with scantily clad females and a hip soundtrack. Hollywood are always so content to release a movie with the number one purpose of making money, and as such no artistry is involved, so it is resfreshing when movies like this come out.

This is based on a Manga comic and as comic book movies go this is one of the better. The main stars of this movie Mark Dacascos and Julie Condra both draw the audience in, and have a good chemsitry together (they should, they got married soon after having met on this film!) which really adds a dimension to the love story. Dacascos is a good actor as far as action men go and he has a silent movie actor quality as Tim Burton might say. His eyes are so expressive and he carries a real sense of vulnerability, a femaninity (but still manly grrr!) and a he has a charisma. As for the action, well, Dacascos is an amazing athlete, you see him climb up on a door (you have to see it to believe it) somersault off 15 ft buildings and fly through the air as easily as if he were reaching for a can of lager on his couch.

The look of the film is superb, beautifully shot by Christophe Gans, the film is almost 80 percent visual, with not a lot of dialogue, much like say Conan, although this is a better all round film. Gan's and Dacascos later re-teamed for Brotherhood of the Wolf and I can see them going far. Another thing that gives this movie atmosphere is Patrick O'Hearns superb score, it is atmoshperic, chilling, and as synth scores go, one of the best I have heard. The important thing from a low budget movie like this is that he hasn't used his synth to try to recreate a full orchestra score, because as you know from watching B-movies, it does not work.

Anyway, despite a simple story and some weak supporting actors this is a great love story and a fantastic fantasy movie, it has imaginative action and this film is generally criminally un-noticed.[/size][/font].