Main cast: Mark Dacascos (Yo Hinomura), Julie Condra (Emu O’Hara), Tchéky Karyo (Detective Netah), Byron Mann (Koh), Masaya Kato (Ryuji Hanada), Yoko Shimada (Kimie Hanada), Rae Dawn Chong (Detective Forge), and Mako (Shido Shimazaki)
Director: Christophe Gans

Crying Freeman is one of the better movie adaptations of a Japanese manga, but that’s because the manga itself is badly-drawn, poorly-plotted soft porn. This is one of those instances where the source material has already set the bar low, so even a resulting movie like this one—badly acted, weird, so awful it’s beautiful—would seem like a masterpiece in comparison. The whole thing is off right from the start, when Julie Condra’s voice is dubbed over by Deborah Kara Unger, while Ron Perlman growls and snarls over Tchéky Karyo’s lines. Maybe the folks behind this movie want it to sound more American, who knows.

In some ways, this movie is pretty much its own thing with barely any connection with the manga, because the protagonist, Yo Hinomura, is an assassin known as Freeman, whose distinctive quirk is that he will shed a tear for his victim before he assassinates that sod. This quirk is shown once in this movie, and barely registers for the rest of it. Our heroine, Emu O’Hara, stumbles upon Yo murdering the son of a Yakuza boss in San Francisco, while celebrating her birthday by painting by the lake. Yes, she’s so sensitive like that. Even though she has just seen him gun down a man, or maybe it’s because of it because some women like their men crazy and violent, she develops a fascination with him that is reciprocated.

Hence, the two embark on an affair even as Yo’s enemies close in around them. By killing the son of the Yakuza boss, our hero has become an unwitting pawn in a war between two feuding Yakuza families, but come on, Yo is the kind of guy who looks hot and dangerous while demolishing his enemies in only a jockstrap. Well hello there, Mr Dacascos. Also, Yo’s handler Koh, who is tasked to keep an eye on Yo and make sure that assassin doesn’t stray from their organization’s code and what not, is becoming increasingly unhappy that Yo is not only letting a witness live, he is shacking up with her to boot.

One thing this movie does right is the atmosphere. Everything here is so wildly melodramatic that it is hard to take the movie seriously, and that’s a good thing because this movie has enough wooden acting, ludicrous plot developments, and bad dialogues (I’m looking at Detective Netah). Treating this movie like it’s serious business is one way to get an aneurysm quickly. It is far easier to enjoy it as a nonsensical, full-filled B-grade flick with a hero that isn’t ashamed to parade his rear end in a jockstrap while kicking his opponents’ rear ends. The fight scenes are ridiculous, of course, in terms of defying gravity and what not, but they are also slick and stylish to the point that it is just so good to watch and wallow in the whole nonsensical over the top nature of this movie. Seriously, at the penultimate moment of this movie, Emu is just standing there in a lovely kimono, twirling an umbrella like an arty geisha, while havoc explodes all around her. Style over substance? Oh, absolutely, and in this case, wonderfully.

So, what can I say? Crying Freeman is easily one of the better Western adaptations of an Eastern manga out there, not that there is much competition in that area in the first place. It’s also a hilariously fun bad movie in its own right, so it’s certainly worth a look if only for the laughs and for Mr Dacascos’s buns on display.