Reviews (10)

Simply Amazing
I watched it twice in one night because I enjoyed it so. Much of the movie takes place in a radio station in the back of a traveling semi, but the location doesn't even matter. For those of you who enjoy the nuances of the human voice, get this, and just listen to it. There is a series of stories told, which intertwine beautifully, and are told over, through, and around the radio broadcast. Beyond that, I don't want to give more away. Enjoy!

EXCELLENT
I am certainly a fan of Zalman King and his work. I admit, I had to watch this film twice, as it wasn't until the end, that I completely understood what was going on. The second time around was wonderful. Very well done. I particularily enjoyed how, the film focussed on voices, and especially Donna De Lory and partner Cameron Stone, who's contribution enlightened and enhanced the intrigue ... added color and managed to add yet another dimension to the story and how it was being described by the main actress. Watch it a second time, and even a third to catch all the nuances. Another brilliant movie, and another different way of describing and feeding our inner desires, need, vulnerabilities.

Hauntingly Beautiful
I caught this one on a late night cable channel. I didn't know what to expect but the first few minutes caught me and I couldn't look away.
This is a story about an Heiress who managed to get away from her ruthless drug lord father and escape to the states. The story is laid out from her perspective and she incorperates the lives of two other women that she knew as a result of working at a coffee shop.
I can see how this may be a bit confusing at first because the storyteller is a blind radio pirate who is actually the heiress. She tells her story only at night in hopes of luring her father to her.
In the heiress's story, which to me is the only one that matters, Her brother was kidnapped and murdered and her mother committed suicide by driving drunken off a cliff. Then the young blonde girl is sent away from home because it is no longer safe. In this segment she realizes that her mother should have had a driver when she crashed and that leads her to believe that her father murdered her mother. The heiress runs from the 'bodygaurd' and gets away only because of a young asian man who distracts the men while she escapes.
Later in the states she meets up with this asian man and they fall in love and plan to move to another city where her father can't find them.
Then one night before they leave her father's men attack the coffee shop in hopes of kidnapping her, they mortally wound the asian man and before he dies he kills the man forcing the heiress into the car and she escapes.
From that day on due to the trauma she goes blind.

I'm not sure how long from this instance till she decides to tell her story via pirate radio, but she looks older to me.

That is only the heiress' story there are two other's to follow as well. This was beautifully orchastrated, and a jewel to watch. I love it.

Zalman King must be stopped
Caught this late at night (where it belonged). A complete and total tease. Music video editing, incomprehensible plots--ponderous and stultifyingly pretentious.

I have a theory that [stuff] like this and the "Red Shoe Diaries" actually drives people TO hardcore pornography.
ALRIGHT ALREADY--JUST GET TO IT!!!

An interesting film
I had never heard of pirate radio stations before watching this movie. I found the idea of a beautiful pirate radio host traveling the streets of Los Angeles in a fully armed 18 wheeler a bit strange at first, but it all makes sense at the end. The lead actress was so beautiful, so ethereal, so melancholy that I empathized with the men who protected and loved her. I never saw the Red Shoe Diaries (the director directed that series) but I've heard good things about it and I found this story to be surprisingly entertaining with the voices of the lead actress and Sally Kellerman (who is still sexy after all these years) and Donna De Lory's soundtrack to be both haunting and soothing. I highly recommend getting Ms. De Lory's album, "Bliss," to enjoy this wonderful performer. As erotica, though, the movie is quite tame, and the comedianne part was somewhat of a disappointment because her jokes weren't funny and they didn't show enough of her to really get a sense of her erotic nuances. Thus the four star rating rather than a five. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Perfect Mix
This film mixs espionage with soft core S & M wonderfully. Carolyn Lowery is a definite bonus in this feature, she fits the role well among other things. The plot twists in this movie will keep you guessing to the end. Forshadowing aspects of this movie do help you along a little too much at times. Overall I recommend it highly if you like being surprised by a movie ending.

Rebuttal
No doubt about it. But this is really all about Carolyn Lowery, who's just utterly beautiful.

dillion comes home
a truly fine work of espionage the characters are believable and the story line makes you feel you're a part of the excitement drama and final outcome ... Read more

Reviews (26)

Superb anime version of solid crime-themed Japanese manga
CRYING FREEMAN: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER (1988) is the first of six Japanese anime volumes based on the manga (comic book) by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami about a handsome young sculptor who is forcibly recruited by the 108 Dragons, an ancient organization of Chinese assassins. We see him trained as an assassin and programmed to kill on their orders. His uncontrolled stream of tears after each killing and his yearning to be free give him the name, Crying Freeman.

Things get complicated when Freeman is forced to undertake the elimination of a witness to one of his killings. She is a beautiful, lonely, single Japanese woman and, like Freeman, an accomplished artist. They recognize each other as soul mates and he risks his life'and hers'to convince the organization of her value to him.

This 52-minute animated production is almost a perfect adaptation of the manga story and stands out as the best of the CRYING FREEMAN animated series. The dramatic mood and visual elegance of the black-and-white drawings are surprisingly well-captured by the anime, despite the bright colors and lighting. Daisuke Nishio, the anime director, knows how to pace a scene and establish the proper sense of time and place. It helps that Ikegami's drawings and his sense of cutting and composition are so astutely cinematic in the first place.

The Crying Freeman manga is notable for its high doses of nudity, near-pornographic sex and extremely bloody violence. The anime doesn't stint on these elements either, although it takes great pains to stay within R-rated limits. However, the sheer beauty of their presentation here may win over otherwise hesitant viewers, while fully satisfying the already jaded fans of more hard-edged anime.

The "Crying Freeman" manga has also been adapted, considerably less faithfully, into two live-action films, CRYING FREEMAN (France, 1995), directed by Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) and starring Mark Dacascos, and KILLER'S ROMANCE (Hong Kong, 1990), starring Simon Yam and Joey Wang.

Truly a Work of Art
Crying Freeman is a true work of art ahead of its time. Viewing this great anime is candy for the anime lover's eye. Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami wrote the magna that turned into a smash hit. The plot is revolves around an assassin from the Chinese Mafia. Originally, an acclaimed pottery designer, Yoh Hinamura is drawn into a crime ring when he finds film that contains photographs of a murder. Brainwashed to be a killer he murders people and after every person, he kills, he weeps.

When a woman by the name of Emu Hino (age 29 and a virgin) witnesses a murder. They briefly and awkwardly talk for a moment before Yoh flees. Afterward she fears for her life.
When the Chinese Mafia, a drug and arms dealing business, expands into Japan police and a Japanese gang with a following of 26,000 members team up to stop the Mafia. In the first episode "Portrait of a Killer" Freeman, setting the plot into motion, assassinates the leader of the Japan gang. At that crime, by chance Freeman runs past Yoh. Their eyes never meet but she knows it was him.

When Freeman goes to assassinate Emu, she tells him that she knows she will be killed. Her final request is that she does not die a virgin. (Over protective late father kept her from experiencing love). She tells that she is a virgin to Yoh and he states that he is also a virgin. They have sex, revealing Yoh's intricate dragon tattoos. Both experiencing love for the first time, they start to car for each other and speeding up the process, she is shot in a scuffle immediately after they have sex. He rushes her to the hospital. Knowing that she will never be safe, he takes her in.

This anime is not for children or young teens for that matter. Crying Freeman has a mix of mild language with a large amount of upper nudity and several sexual orientations. All of this is heavily coated with pools of blood. This is a graphic anime but as stated earlier, this is geared toward a mature audience.

Recap: Beautiful anime that pushed the boundaries of acceptable anime when released in 1986. Till this day, Crying Freeman is still a crowd please. I loved it. If you are looking an anime with class but still contains a sexual and action packed adventure then you have found the right anime. Five Stars!

5 Stars From Me
I have all the volumes and love each one although the last two aren't as good as the first. The episodes start repeating themselves after a while. In the first, Freeman's origin of how he is turned into an assassin against his will is revealed and he cries each time he kills somebody as a release to his true self. He is sent to kill a woman but she doesn't want to die a virgin so she asks that he have sex with her before he kills her. Being the nice guy that he is, he agrees. He says he's also a virgin. I think he was lying. This guy has sex with pretty much every woman he meets in this series. He didn't start having sex until he met this woman in the first episode? I don't believe it. Anyway, he falls in love with her and marries her. The rest of the episodes go something like this: somebody or some group wants to kill Freeman and take over the 108 Dragons and Freeman stops them. That's pretty much it. Oh yea, plenty of killing, nudity and sex is thrown in. Some lovable characters are thrown in and some die sadly but it's all good. For me, the only let down is Freeman never becomes free. At the end of the series he is still a killer. I was expecting a breakthrough. His soul is obviously being tortured since he cries after he kills. I would have liked to see him break away from that life. But oh well. I still love it. It's a classic

Move over M.D. Geist...
....there's a new Worst Anime Ever in town. I never thought I'd say this, but an anime has come along that is actually worse than M.D. Geist. Those screams you're hearing are probably your own.

Crying Freeman is about a gentle artist who is turned into a merciless killer against his will. He fights to get his life back, as well as fighting for the clan who "adopted" him. The top assassin in the trade, he will always cry after killing, hence the codename: Crying Freeman.

And that's about a much a synopsis as you need for this TOTAL turkey. It borrows some elements from the manga, but takes only the worst of them, and animates (and I use this term VERY loosely) them on the screen.
Wait; did I say this was animated? I guess, in a way it is, but that is if you count those children's tapes that were so low-budget they would take still pictures and move parts of those pictures around to simulate movement as "animation". This is *beyond* yick. It looks like they scanned pictures from the manga (that's -one- way to get the art style faithful...who needs artists?), scribbled them with marker, and had the guy wiggle the page beneath the camera lens just to make it look remotely like it's animated. ("The page is moving, right? Therefore it's animation!")
As if this treatment wasn't enough, they chopped out everything in the story that made you sympathetic towards Freeman. You honestly couldn't give two swats of a guinea pig's tail (yes, I know they don't have tails!) for any character in this series. Well, they didn't take out ALL the content...there's still sex and violence, but the sex is anything but erotic and the violence was anything but graphic. Doesn't that sound -wrong- to you? It does to me too... That I watched six episodes full of this dreck amazes me to this day. Maybe I did it for love of the manga, and I could not accept this hideous abomination of his work as being anywhere near authentic.

If you really, really want to see this video series...have a lobotomy. It will soften the blow. Or better yet, wise up and go buy the manga series instead. The manga is a gripping, disturbing, sad, and ultimately compelling tale that it definitely worth trying out. The video series...is simply disturbing and sad, but not in the same way the manga is. I know now the real reason Freeman always cries...because he's trapped in such a truly awful "anime" series.

I am a saint for giving this thing one star.

I love it!
I'm a huge Crying Freeman fan! I'm so happy it's out on DVD! ... Read more

Reviews (26)

Superb anime version of solid crime-themed Japanese manga
CRYING FREEMAN: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER (1988) is the first of six Japanese anime volumes based on the manga (comic book) by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami about a handsome young sculptor who is forcibly recruited by the 108 Dragons, an ancient organization of Chinese assassins. We see him trained as an assassin and programmed to kill on their orders. His uncontrolled stream of tears after each killing and his yearning to be free give him the name, Crying Freeman.

Things get complicated when Freeman is forced to undertake the elimination of a witness to one of his killings. She is a beautiful, lonely, single Japanese woman and, like Freeman, an accomplished artist. They recognize each other as soul mates and he risks his life'and hers'to convince the organization of her value to him.

This 52-minute animated production is almost a perfect adaptation of the manga story and stands out as the best of the CRYING FREEMAN animated series. The dramatic mood and visual elegance of the black-and-white drawings are surprisingly well-captured by the anime, despite the bright colors and lighting. Daisuke Nishio, the anime director, knows how to pace a scene and establish the proper sense of time and place. It helps that Ikegami's drawings and his sense of cutting and composition are so astutely cinematic in the first place.

The Crying Freeman manga is notable for its high doses of nudity, near-pornographic sex and extremely bloody violence. The anime doesn't stint on these elements either, although it takes great pains to stay within R-rated limits. However, the sheer beauty of their presentation here may win over otherwise hesitant viewers, while fully satisfying the already jaded fans of more hard-edged anime.

The "Crying Freeman" manga has also been adapted, considerably less faithfully, into two live-action films, CRYING FREEMAN (France, 1995), directed by Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) and starring Mark Dacascos, and KILLER'S ROMANCE (Hong Kong, 1990), starring Simon Yam and Joey Wang.

Truly a Work of Art
Crying Freeman is a true work of art ahead of its time. Viewing this great anime is candy for the anime lover's eye. Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami wrote the magna that turned into a smash hit. The plot is revolves around an assassin from the Chinese Mafia. Originally, an acclaimed pottery designer, Yoh Hinamura is drawn into a crime ring when he finds film that contains photographs of a murder. Brainwashed to be a killer he murders people and after every person, he kills, he weeps.

When a woman by the name of Emu Hino (age 29 and a virgin) witnesses a murder. They briefly and awkwardly talk for a moment before Yoh flees. Afterward she fears for her life.
When the Chinese Mafia, a drug and arms dealing business, expands into Japan police and a Japanese gang with a following of 26,000 members team up to stop the Mafia. In the first episode "Portrait of a Killer" Freeman, setting the plot into motion, assassinates the leader of the Japan gang. At that crime, by chance Freeman runs past Yoh. Their eyes never meet but she knows it was him.

When Freeman goes to assassinate Emu, she tells him that she knows she will be killed. Her final request is that she does not die a virgin. (Over protective late father kept her from experiencing love). She tells that she is a virgin to Yoh and he states that he is also a virgin. They have sex, revealing Yoh's intricate dragon tattoos. Both experiencing love for the first time, they start to car for each other and speeding up the process, she is shot in a scuffle immediately after they have sex. He rushes her to the hospital. Knowing that she will never be safe, he takes her in.

This anime is not for children or young teens for that matter. Crying Freeman has a mix of mild language with a large amount of upper nudity and several sexual orientations. All of this is heavily coated with pools of blood. This is a graphic anime but as stated earlier, this is geared toward a mature audience.

Recap: Beautiful anime that pushed the boundaries of acceptable anime when released in 1986. Till this day, Crying Freeman is still a crowd please. I loved it. If you are looking an anime with class but still contains a sexual and action packed adventure then you have found the right anime. Five Stars!

5 Stars From Me
I have all the volumes and love each one although the last two aren't as good as the first. The episodes start repeating themselves after a while. In the first, Freeman's origin of how he is turned into an assassin against his will is revealed and he cries each time he kills somebody as a release to his true self. He is sent to kill a woman but she doesn't want to die a virgin so she asks that he have sex with her before he kills her. Being the nice guy that he is, he agrees. He says he's also a virgin. I think he was lying. This guy has sex with pretty much every woman he meets in this series. He didn't start having sex until he met this woman in the first episode? I don't believe it. Anyway, he falls in love with her and marries her. The rest of the episodes go something like this: somebody or some group wants to kill Freeman and take over the 108 Dragons and Freeman stops them. That's pretty much it. Oh yea, plenty of killing, nudity and sex is thrown in. Some lovable characters are thrown in and some die sadly but it's all good. For me, the only let down is Freeman never becomes free. At the end of the series he is still a killer. I was expecting a breakthrough. His soul is obviously being tortured since he cries after he kills. I would have liked to see him break away from that life. But oh well. I still love it. It's a classic

Move over M.D. Geist...
....there's a new Worst Anime Ever in town. I never thought I'd say this, but an anime has come along that is actually worse than M.D. Geist. Those screams you're hearing are probably your own.

Crying Freeman is about a gentle artist who is turned into a merciless killer against his will. He fights to get his life back, as well as fighting for the clan who "adopted" him. The top assassin in the trade, he will always cry after killing, hence the codename: Crying Freeman.

And that's about a much a synopsis as you need for this TOTAL turkey. It borrows some elements from the manga, but takes only the worst of them, and animates (and I use this term VERY loosely) them on the screen.
Wait; did I say this was animated? I guess, in a way it is, but that is if you count those children's tapes that were so low-budget they would take still pictures and move parts of those pictures around to simulate movement as "animation". This is *beyond* yick. It looks like they scanned pictures from the manga (that's -one- way to get the art style faithful...who needs artists?), scribbled them with marker, and had the guy wiggle the page beneath the camera lens just to make it look remotely like it's animated. ("The page is moving, right? Therefore it's animation!")
As if this treatment wasn't enough, they chopped out everything in the story that made you sympathetic towards Freeman. You honestly couldn't give two swats of a guinea pig's tail (yes, I know they don't have tails!) for any character in this series. Well, they didn't take out ALL the content...there's still sex and violence, but the sex is anything but erotic and the violence was anything but graphic. Doesn't that sound -wrong- to you? It does to me too... That I watched six episodes full of this dreck amazes me to this day. Maybe I did it for love of the manga, and I could not accept this hideous abomination of his work as being anywhere near authentic.

If you really, really want to see this video series...have a lobotomy. It will soften the blow. Or better yet, wise up and go buy the manga series instead. The manga is a gripping, disturbing, sad, and ultimately compelling tale that it definitely worth trying out. The video series...is simply disturbing and sad, but not in the same way the manga is. I know now the real reason Freeman always cries...because he's trapped in such a truly awful "anime" series.

I am a saint for giving this thing one star.

I love it!
I'm a huge Crying Freeman fan! I'm so happy it's out on DVD! ... Read more

Reviews (26)

Superb anime version of solid crime-themed Japanese manga
CRYING FREEMAN: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER (1988) is the first of six Japanese anime volumes based on the manga (comic book) by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami about a handsome young sculptor who is forcibly recruited by the 108 Dragons, an ancient organization of Chinese assassins. We see him trained as an assassin and programmed to kill on their orders. His uncontrolled stream of tears after each killing and his yearning to be free give him the name, Crying Freeman.

Things get complicated when Freeman is forced to undertake the elimination of a witness to one of his killings. She is a beautiful, lonely, single Japanese woman and, like Freeman, an accomplished artist. They recognize each other as soul mates and he risks his life'and hers'to convince the organization of her value to him.

This 52-minute animated production is almost a perfect adaptation of the manga story and stands out as the best of the CRYING FREEMAN animated series. The dramatic mood and visual elegance of the black-and-white drawings are surprisingly well-captured by the anime, despite the bright colors and lighting. Daisuke Nishio, the anime director, knows how to pace a scene and establish the proper sense of time and place. It helps that Ikegami's drawings and his sense of cutting and composition are so astutely cinematic in the first place.

The Crying Freeman manga is notable for its high doses of nudity, near-pornographic sex and extremely bloody violence. The anime doesn't stint on these elements either, although it takes great pains to stay within R-rated limits. However, the sheer beauty of their presentation here may win over otherwise hesitant viewers, while fully satisfying the already jaded fans of more hard-edged anime.

The "Crying Freeman" manga has also been adapted, considerably less faithfully, into two live-action films, CRYING FREEMAN (France, 1995), directed by Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) and starring Mark Dacascos, and KILLER'S ROMANCE (Hong Kong, 1990), starring Simon Yam and Joey Wang.

Truly a Work of Art
Crying Freeman is a true work of art ahead of its time. Viewing this great anime is candy for the anime lover's eye. Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami wrote the magna that turned into a smash hit. The plot is revolves around an assassin from the Chinese Mafia. Originally, an acclaimed pottery designer, Yoh Hinamura is drawn into a crime ring when he finds film that contains photographs of a murder. Brainwashed to be a killer he murders people and after every person, he kills, he weeps.

When a woman by the name of Emu Hino (age 29 and a virgin) witnesses a murder. They briefly and awkwardly talk for a moment before Yoh flees. Afterward she fears for her life.
When the Chinese Mafia, a drug and arms dealing business, expands into Japan police and a Japanese gang with a following of 26,000 members team up to stop the Mafia. In the first episode "Portrait of a Killer" Freeman, setting the plot into motion, assassinates the leader of the Japan gang. At that crime, by chance Freeman runs past Yoh. Their eyes never meet but she knows it was him.

When Freeman goes to assassinate Emu, she tells him that she knows she will be killed. Her final request is that she does not die a virgin. (Over protective late father kept her from experiencing love). She tells that she is a virgin to Yoh and he states that he is also a virgin. They have sex, revealing Yoh's intricate dragon tattoos. Both experiencing love for the first time, they start to car for each other and speeding up the process, she is shot in a scuffle immediately after they have sex. He rushes her to the hospital. Knowing that she will never be safe, he takes her in.

This anime is not for children or young teens for that matter. Crying Freeman has a mix of mild language with a large amount of upper nudity and several sexual orientations. All of this is heavily coated with pools of blood. This is a graphic anime but as stated earlier, this is geared toward a mature audience.

Recap: Beautiful anime that pushed the boundaries of acceptable anime when released in 1986. Till this day, Crying Freeman is still a crowd please. I loved it. If you are looking an anime with class but still contains a sexual and action packed adventure then you have found the right anime. Five Stars!

5 Stars From Me
I have all the volumes and love each one although the last two aren't as good as the first. The episodes start repeating themselves after a while. In the first, Freeman's origin of how he is turned into an assassin against his will is revealed and he cries each time he kills somebody as a release to his true self. He is sent to kill a woman but she doesn't want to die a virgin so she asks that he have sex with her before he kills her. Being the nice guy that he is, he agrees. He says he's also a virgin. I think he was lying. This guy has sex with pretty much every woman he meets in this series. He didn't start having sex until he met this woman in the first episode? I don't believe it. Anyway, he falls in love with her and marries her. The rest of the episodes go something like this: somebody or some group wants to kill Freeman and take over the 108 Dragons and Freeman stops them. That's pretty much it. Oh yea, plenty of killing, nudity and sex is thrown in. Some lovable characters are thrown in and some die sadly but it's all good. For me, the only let down is Freeman never becomes free. At the end of the series he is still a killer. I was expecting a breakthrough. His soul is obviously being tortured since he cries after he kills. I would have liked to see him break away from that life. But oh well. I still love it. It's a classic

Move over M.D. Geist...
....there's a new Worst Anime Ever in town. I never thought I'd say this, but an anime has come along that is actually worse than M.D. Geist. Those screams you're hearing are probably your own.

Crying Freeman is about a gentle artist who is turned into a merciless killer against his will. He fights to get his life back, as well as fighting for the clan who "adopted" him. The top assassin in the trade, he will always cry after killing, hence the codename: Crying Freeman.

And that's about a much a synopsis as you need for this TOTAL turkey. It borrows some elements from the manga, but takes only the worst of them, and animates (and I use this term VERY loosely) them on the screen.
Wait; did I say this was animated? I guess, in a way it is, but that is if you count those children's tapes that were so low-budget they would take still pictures and move parts of those pictures around to simulate movement as "animation". This is *beyond* yick. It looks like they scanned pictures from the manga (that's -one- way to get the art style faithful...who needs artists?), scribbled them with marker, and had the guy wiggle the page beneath the camera lens just to make it look remotely like it's animated. ("The page is moving, right? Therefore it's animation!")
As if this treatment wasn't enough, they chopped out everything in the story that made you sympathetic towards Freeman. You honestly couldn't give two swats of a guinea pig's tail (yes, I know they don't have tails!) for any character in this series. Well, they didn't take out ALL the content...there's still sex and violence, but the sex is anything but erotic and the violence was anything but graphic. Doesn't that sound -wrong- to you? It does to me too... That I watched six episodes full of this dreck amazes me to this day. Maybe I did it for love of the manga, and I could not accept this hideous abomination of his work as being anywhere near authentic.

If you really, really want to see this video series...have a lobotomy. It will soften the blow. Or better yet, wise up and go buy the manga series instead. The manga is a gripping, disturbing, sad, and ultimately compelling tale that it definitely worth trying out. The video series...is simply disturbing and sad, but not in the same way the manga is. I know now the real reason Freeman always cries...because he's trapped in such a truly awful "anime" series.

I am a saint for giving this thing one star.

I love it!
I'm a huge Crying Freeman fan! I'm so happy it's out on DVD! ... Read more

Reviews (50)

Emotive violent drama
I meant to see this in the cinema with a friend but we never got round to it so as soon as it came out on DVD I had already planned an evening in.
To give a bit of background, Kitano plays Aniki Yamamoto, a Japanese gangster forced to leave Japan for Los Angeles. In a place where he doesn't understand a word of language he finds his younger brother Ken. Within moments Aniki is up to his usual antics - starting gang wars and turns his brother and his drug dealing side-kicks into a prominent yakuza force in LA.
I loved this movie so much. Yes it's violent but Kitano never directs the movie as to glorify it.
It's not the violent moments that make the film but the more quieter moments where the friendship of Yamamoto and his new-found friends grow, blossom and fade all too quickly.
Omar Epps is sublime as Denny, whom Kitano's character forms an unlikely friendship and the two actors play off one another superbly.
Make no mistake, this is a violent film but Kitano still manages to inject some moments of hilarity. The board meeting with the Mexican crime lords had my sides splitting where Ken has to translate for his older brother, Aniki.
This is a beautiful, thinking man's gangster film - so unlike a lot of the tripe you see today. There's beauty, happiness, tradgedy and action all flowing from one superbly shot Kitano scene to the next. It has to be said also that Joe Hisashi's score and soundtrack are wonderful to behold.
If you're a Kitano fan then this is a must-see and it's also worthwhile if you've never seen a Kitano film and are looking for something refreshing in the action-gangster genre.
In my opinion Kitano's style will never appeal to the mainstream western cinema but this fantastic effort ensures that his fan-base and credibility in the west is surely justified and he can probably add some new fans after this one as well.
Compelling viewing.

A movie that makes Sopranos look like a network soap opera
Ok never heard of this guy knew of Omar Epps seen him do mostly Black Dramas so along comes this movie that had it not had him on the cover I probably would have ignored it so I picked it up read the back cover put it down came back a week later on one of movie nights at home and pop it into my DVD player and was loving it from the moment it started Takeshi kitano is pure genius he made me chuckle at his mannerisms but I loved his intimate relationship with Omar Epps character after running into him on the street. I'm glad there was a mix of races in this movie from Asain ,Blacks,Hispanic and,Italian.It gave the movie depth it made it seem more realistic. The only reason I gave it four stars was that the pacing threw me for a couple moments and I was tempted to fall asleep until the action started other wise it was a treat to see definently a buy when I can track it down on DVD.

boring
This movie was really boring. It was slow and uninteresting. the man who did this movie is the one trying to bring back the Zatoichi series. I have not seen the new Zatoichi movie yet but this movie gives me great doubts about how good it will be. His other movies may be good but this one is a definite time waster. Save yourselves.

One of the best films I have seen.
I am fed up with people talking about how kill bill is such a good film. I watched this film about a week after I saw Kill Bill and I honestly think this is the better film. I watched it 3 times. The way Beat' integrates american and japanese culture makes this film standout. The scene where his luitenent plays basketball with one of his brothers friends stands out. Another scene is when they go to attack the mafia, all you see is flashes of gunfire while this young boy is dead in the car. This is a moving film, asides the infruequent gore, You feel a great sympathy for the characters.
Kill bill has no technique at all especially when she is fighting the crazy 88 or whatever. I have seen more technique in Iron Monkey (an old skool martial arts film)The awkward ending leaves you distraught with no hope, but that is the point of the film and 'Beat' portays it that way.

Insight for Japnophiles, but Hanabi was a better film
Brother may seem like a whole lot of meaningless gore, and in fact I don't think it was a particularly well-made or enjoyable movie, but it provides valuable insight into the Japanese perception of their place in the world. I'm not sure this was intended by the director, but it makes a very interesting contrast to, for example, "Rising Sun", another fairly average movie (can't comment on the book, haven't read it), which showed a very American perspective of the Japanese.

Whereas in Rising Sun, we saw the Japanese as sneaky little yellow men hiding their prejudices, corruption and kinky sex behind polite smiles and a facade of high culture, here Kitano portrays them (or at least the Yakuza) as noble, loyal, selfless, brave warriors, willing to sacrifice all to protect their honour. Quite a contrast!

Rising Sun showed Westerners (represented by the US alone, as usual) as passionate but ultimately rational, independent-minded for the better, and, for the most part at least, genuine (in a "what you see is what you get" sense). Kyoudai (incidentally, the title refers not to any blood relationship between the two main characters - there was none!, but to the "brotherhood" of the Yakuza) shows Westerners as emotionally out-of-control, intellectually lacking, hopelessly disorganised and incapable of any subtlety or restraint. From considerable experience in Japan I can assure you that this is an accurate representation of the stereotype held by many Japanese.

Another (I think) accurate representation of the Japanese mindset in this film lies in the ease with which the Japanese muscle-in on the US underworld. With their diligence, their capacity for cooperation and self-sacrifice towards long-term, collective goals, how could they possibly fail against this disorganised rabble of Westerners?! - this is the attitude presented, and mostly validated in this film. It's very interesting, then, that the "brotherhood" are ultimately unsuccessful in their power-bid. Is this a symbolic recognition that the US has remained militarily and economically supreme? At the least, I feel that the way in which Kitano's character dies again reflects an important facet of the Japanese mindset, being the attitude that there is only ever a choice of complete victory or total failure, conquering the whole of Asia or being stripped of all military power, scoring highly in the University entrance exams or dropping out of the academic world completely - there is absolutely no room for compromise or mediocrity, and thus a willingness follows to sacrifice everything in the bid for that absolute, and possibly elusive, victory. Of course, this has alarming implications for Japan's potential return to military and/or economic power.

But if you want, you can forget my interpretations and just see this movie as a whole lot of meaningless gore. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

ULTRA-COOL SPOOKFEST FOR ANY ANIME FAN
THIS MOVIE IS BASED ON THE ANIME SERIES "DOOMED MEGALOPOLIS". THE STORY IS ABOUT A MAN NAMED KATO WHO COMMUNICATES WITH THE DEAD. HE IS HELL-BENT ON REVENGE TO DESTROY TOKYO FOR REASONS THAT I WILL NOT GIVE AWAY. A LONE FAMILY HAS MANY STRUGGLES AGAINST HIM THROUGH SUICIDE, INCEST, DEMONIC POSSESSION, AND DEITY INCARNATIONS. THOUGH SLOW AT FIRST, IF YOU GIVE IT A CHANCE YOU WILL SEE THAT IT IS A MUST-HAVE! ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Perfect Mix
This film mixs espionage with soft core S & M wonderfully. Carolyn Lowery is a definite bonus in this feature, she fits the role well among other things. The plot twists in this movie will keep you guessing to the end. Forshadowing aspects of this movie do help you along a little too much at times. Overall I recommend it highly if you like being surprised by a movie ending.

Rebuttal
No doubt about it. But this is really all about Carolyn Lowery, who's just utterly beautiful.

dillion comes home
a truly fine work of espionage the characters are believable and the story line makes you feel you're a part of the excitement drama and final outcome ... Read more

Reviews (34)

An alternative to Jackie Chan! Yaaaahoooo!
As a fan of Martial Arts I must give this movie an " A+". Even the plot was quite okay, or do you expect super-emotional, drama acting in a movie like this? I guess not. The way I see it, the movie is made for " martial" fun and entertainment. I knew that Mark Dacascos had a lot of talent as he has shown in " Only the Strong" and " Crying Freeman". But Drive has totally convinced me that he is even better than van Damme and Seagal. The choreographing of the fights are similar to another " Super action hero" from Hong Kong ( You know who I'm talking about? ). He has super-flashy dancing moves like you have never seen before. In my opinion he should have a role in a Jackie Chan movie. But besides Dacascos, Kadeem Hardisson has also done a good by entertaining us with his motormouth.( Because I'm a german citizen I've just seen the German dubbed version. I'm looking forward to see the original version.) Unbelievable movie. What else can you say.....

overlooked
Today,with the success of a film like "the matrix",this low budget gem would be lining them up in the video stores-but...and this is the sad truth...it arrived too soon-this fun,exciting action flick has been overlooked due to bad distribution,producer indifference and all the other problems that plague small ventures like these-it's a shame-star mark dacascos could give jet li a run-or leap- for his money(much less psuedo martial artist keanu reeves)and can speak english!Director steve wang has deserved a shot at the big time for some years now-he obviously has the hong kong style down and even adds his own style of action/humor(to rival jackie chan)-there are too many films and too many millions being wasted on hollywood's idea of martial arts action(norris/segal/van damme/etc.)and talented people like this get ignored-films like "drive" and "crying freeman"(also starring dacascos-and this one can't even get an american release!-even after outdoing blockbuster american action movies in france and japan!)deserve a second chance-hell-they deserve a 1st chance at the kind of exposure that dozens of tired big budget hollywood action flicks get every day!-

are you kidding me?
i can't believe i bought this movie, you guys are nuts!! since there are 33 positive reviews i'll be the lone sole to say this movie is a piece of crap. everyone says this is a great martial arts flick, i'll give it the one star for some good fight scenes, although they all look like rip offs of jackie chan flicks. you remember the tv series the A-Team with Mr.T, thats the quality of this flick. the acting is horrible, the story is so stupid, the directing is very bad, ummm... did i mention this movie sucks, even for a B movie it sucks. please, if you can rent before you buy it, do so, cause its not worth seeing more than once. i just can't believe that because there are some good fight scenes that everyone is giving this film such high scores, if you review a film it should be based on the whole film, not just one thing.

Mark Dacascos at his best
This movie is a Tour De Force for Mark Dacascos. You get to see him show everything that he has only shown glimpses of before. If you think Bruce Lee is fast, you haven't seen anything yet. Jet Li wishes he could be this acrobatic. Considering this is Mark's first attempt at a full fledged Hong Kong style action film, he is truly amazing not only in the fact that he pulls it off so well, but that he pulls it off better than the people who have been doing it for much longer. Even the most seasoned martial arts fan will find themselves saying wow more than once.

The story centers around Mark's character, Toby Wong, escaping China and coming to America to have a biological uprgrade surgically planted in his chest remeoved. It increases the power of the person it's in. One shouldn't expect anything enlightening from the script, it's meant to be a vehicle (pun, semi intended) for showing off martial arts action. But there is a scene in the director's cut where Mark shows his acting range. It involved Toby discussing his relationship with his girlfriend, which I won't reveal so as to not ruin things. It also succeeds in being incredibly funny, with Mark playing the straight man to Kadeem Hardison's character. The rest of the cast get's in some good lines too and if you're not a snob who expects all your movies to have subtitles and deal with subject matter that would be deemed garbage if it was the same product made in Hollywood minus the captions, then this is a movie for you.

I highly recommend seeking out the versions that are uncut or have the deleted scenes and interviews. There's some extra action, but most of it involves showing the backstory on the characters as well as additionl humorous scenes. The only thing that bothers me is that the music that was in the cut version is more intersting to me. There's not much info available on the recent re-release of this movie and it appears to not have any extras. Look for the cover that show's Mark and Kadeem in a full body shot if you want the special edition.

MARVELOUS MARK
In watching a movie like DRIVE, one has to be in awe of the amount of work the fight choreographer has to do in such a film. DRIVE is action packed from the beginning, in reality one big long kickfest. But Mark Dacascos is awesome to watch and his silent, grim countenance melts at times into a boyish grin; his work with Kadeem Hardison is fun to watch, and Brittany Murphy's Deliverance is one of the funniest femme fatales to grace the screen. Alternately goofy and attempting to be sexually alluring, Murphy is a doll and buoys the movie significantly. John Pyper Ferguson as the nasty assassin is both chilling and hilarious; the movie moves at lightning pace and is one big thrill to watch! ... Read more

Description

Created to help control the population of Jesus Town, Hakaider was abandoned and left for dead once his uncontrollable nature became apparent. Now, his creator Gurjev has a new cyborg-enforcer, Michael. When treasure hunters accidentally awake Hakaider from his long slumber, he decides to bring his own justice to Jesus Town. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Stop That Android!!
Japanese use the term tokusatsu films for what we might call 'special effects' films. Our closest equivalent would be the unending Startrek series (with the addition of some robots in latex suits. The term covers a wide range of sins, from the complex ongoing Super Sentai series to pleasantly simplistic (and violent) films like the one under discussion here - Hakaider. Jinzo Nigen Hakaider (Mechanical Man Hakaider) is loosely based on a previous tokusatsu series about Kikaider - an android superhero. He was one of the villains in that series, but in this film his body is discovered by treasure hunters and is reanimated.

At the start of the film we find the camera following a dark figure wearing a menacing samurai mask as he rides a modernistic motorcycle into Jesus Town. In this post-apocalyptic world, the android finds itself siding with rebels. His opponents are Gurjev, a mad ruler and his android associate, Michael. This is one of those films where the good guy looks like a bad guy and the bad guys are all wearing white suits. The simple plot follows Kikaider as he enters Jesus town and comes in contact with the rebels. When Kaoru, a beautiful young raider, falls afoul of the regime, Hakaider builds a full head of steam and takes on the entire establishment in a series of ever more dramatic confrontations.

This is the second of Keita Amemiya's films, and while it is better made (and less silly) than Zeiram 2, this is the Amemiya film with the least amount of plot and character. Instead it's capital is special effects, costumes, and violence. All of which it does quite well for a low budget thriller. Once again Amemiya demonstrates a flair for scene setting and character design. The downside is his penchant for vacuous dialog but, in the light science fiction of its time, perfection was not an option.

There is a great deal of strong Christian symbolism in the film, which an American viewer may find misleading. As in Evangelion, one has to remember that the Christian framework is as mysterious as the Japanese mystical framework is to us. Amemiya uses Christianity to add mystery and a sense of the occult, not to advocate and religious position. The film is meant to be enjoyed, particularly with a good supply of popcorn, not to make an indelible mark on cinematic history.

wiseless comments
Well, just try to not be so lame ^_^ Hakaider (aka hakaida) is the evil guy from the early '70s kikaider (kikaida) live shows...so find a coment about terminator,mad max even alien (1979 If I remember it well) is a bit absurd :) Also note that power rangers are a poor (american)version of other oldie japanese "tokusatsu" heroes.
Japanese old character concepts are very imaginative.This is a '90s point of view of an old badass turned into anti-hero. It's big, It's bad, and it's gonna blow away anyone who cross it's path.Also the movie is spiced with some goth,ciberpunk and religion concepts,making goodie-scouts look as not too good boys (same to evil ones in this film)Film plays with black and white concepts.Amusing future action movie that is not a matrixspawn being :)

This Is Nothing Original
Hakaider is one strange film, but it also appears to be gleemed from several sources. I identified things from "Spawn", "The Road Warrior", "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", "Terminator 2", "Alien" (1 and 2); the list continues ad infinitum. The odd thing is that after a point, all these elements fuse together to be owned by this film in it's own right.
The sets are fantastic, some of the most engaging I've seen (even better than some movies with much larger budgets).
However, the one thing I had a problem getting around were the robot costumes. I kept getting the feeling I was watching the Sex Pistols version of "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers".
This film is large on action and short on believability, not to mention the very bad job on the English subtitles. There were points where the translations made no sense what so ever, sentences were left unfinished and even a very few times when there weren't any.
I spent about [price] retail on this, which is a fair price for this film. Any more than that and I would have been pretty PO'd.
This more of a kids movie, but with some of the graphic violence, consider first what you want the kid exposed to. I won't let mine watch this till she turns 14 atleast.

JINZO NINGEN HAKAIDER IS A WRECKING BALL!!
Okay, I am a little biased because i'm a huge Kikaider and Hakaider fan, but i have to say this movie was actually pretty good for an early work. They revamped the suit to make it a little more sleek and well, more menacing. The atmosphere prett dark, which was actually a pleasant change for me. Hakaider, who gets awakened by robbers, sets out to jesus town where he fights police androids and meets up with a resistance group. Hakaider takes to a woman in the resistance group; when they are found and almost everyone is killed (except for the girl of course), Hakaider decides to take vengence and heads to the head quarters to fight Michael (or Mikhail or something) to the death.
I really don't call this a feature because it's surprisingly short, but the action is there and will have you slightly giggling through some parts of the movie because of it's wacky violence. There was really no character development in this movie, maybe due to the fact this movie was shorter than trip to the toilet. What was kind of funny was that they really didn't explain exactly who or what he is, except for that sketchy little story at the end. I still have no idea if that is Professor Gill's brain or not, since they revamped the whole origin, i guess not. Also, for those who have seen the series, you can see Kikaiders head in the final confrontation between the two machines, it was an incredible laugh, which makes me wonder, when is there going to be a cool Kikaider movie?

Something bad is going down in Jesus Town!
Keita Amamiya (Moon of Toa, Zeiram) makes somewhat bizarre and slightly surreal special effects films. This is one of his early ones, and isn't quite as refined as his later work. Still it's quite an amazing little film.

This film is basically a remake of the 1970s TV series Kaikaider (the 2000 remake of the anime will be distributed by Bandai in the US next year), except Keita has basically set it in a post apocalyptic world, and the evil robot is the good guy, and the hero robot is evil (well, he thinks he is upholding justice anyways). Its kinda like Terminator meets Mad Max but slightly less grungy.

Haikaider is awakened by a bunch of treasure hunters, and proceeds to do away with them in a very violent manner. He is in fact a creation made by Guru Jeff, the extremely insane ruler of Jesus Town. In this town Guru Jeff rules with an iron fist, and an iron android called Michael (who loves to kill humans). Anybody who disobeys Jeff has a chip placed in their head to control their emotions. Haikaider was Jeff's creation, but a failed one. Haikaider decides to kill Jeff, and goes to Jesus Town to violently kill as many of Jeff's guards as possible. There he meets and befriends Keiko and her motley band of revolutionaries who want to over throw their oppressor. And you can just imagine the chaos that ensures for the rest of the film.

OK so it's silly. It's laughable at some points. But in terms of effort and story it amazingly beats a lot of American sci-fi movies and TV series. And it was made on a budget of about $1 million, and looks bloody amazing! Most of the special effects work really well, and the stunts are great. The robot suits are cool, and Keiko's dream sequences are really surreal (if a little cheesy). The only other problem I had with the film was the footage re-inserted to make this extended 'Director's Cut'. Obviously Keita wasn't able to shoot all the scenes he wanted to, and in a couple of spots, scenes don't flow together well and it feels a little jarring. Overall quite a decent little sci-fi film if you you're prepared not to take it too seriously. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Perfect Mix
This film mixs espionage with soft core S & M wonderfully. Carolyn Lowery is a definite bonus in this feature, she fits the role well among other things. The plot twists in this movie will keep you guessing to the end. Forshadowing aspects of this movie do help you along a little too much at times. Overall I recommend it highly if you like being surprised by a movie ending.

Rebuttal
No doubt about it. But this is really all about Carolyn Lowery, who's just utterly beautiful.

dillion comes home
a truly fine work of espionage the characters are believable and the story line makes you feel you're a part of the excitement drama and final outcome ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The Avengers visit Tokyo
Four stars for movie concept, two for DVD presentation. An excellent plot summary is given in the other reviews and I'll weave my comments around their remarks.

If you accept the premise that a barroom tiff over a Rolex and a Zippo can result in an extended hunt-and-be-hunted romp through the land of the rising sun, then you can probably get a kick (no pun intended) out of Shundo Ohkawa's thriller. I must confess that this premise kept me out of this movie's groove for the first half hour, but I settled into things once these western eyes of mine realized that I'm basically watching an Averngers-like plotline, complete with mysterious motives, hunt-and-kill creatively done, and a wink at the audience at the end. I'm not sure of director Shundo Ohkawa's direct influences, but the film is analogous to the Avengers' "Superlative Seven" episode, or the old film classic "The Most Dangerous Game", this time in an urban jungle.

Certain things are missing, mostly in the character department, as we never learn about these guys in any great detail, and there are no charming John Steed or Emma Peel types to round things out. Certainly this is not a film to watch for its human interest elements. On the plus side, the film cleverly avoids the black and white 'good guy, bad guy' situation which might have prevailed in an American film setting. What we have here are six guys who flip flop between hunted and hunter roles, none of whom are completely innocent.

The DVD itself is bare-bones (no trailer, bio or commentary)and the transfer appears to be direct-from-video with occasional minor artifacts that would have been cleaned up in a remastering. I am collecting Asian cinema, so I bought the disk, and I'll keep it. Unless the genre is one that you're hooked on, I'd suggest a rental prior to purchase.

Fine idea, muddled by a lousy script and bad direction.
In this modern Japanese, urban thriller, a minor set of words between two groups of business men leads to one of them getting beat up. They try find the other group to get revenge, but come up empty handed until late one night when they come across one of the rival men in a subway. The three friends beat him severely, so much that they run away, and begin checking the papers to see if they killed him. Soon they begin to get phone calls from the men saying that they have killed the man (though there is no evidence), panic sets in, and slowly they begin to get picked off.

Were these men just crazy business men? Bloodthirsty Yakuza? Crooked Cops? Unfortunately these questions and the I Know What You Did Last Summer-like plotline, dont hold up very well, and are executed in clumsy fashion. The deaths, the suspicion, and the finale, fall too far into b-movie territory. The script, direction, and cinematography, likewise, are poor. Its the kind of movie you watch and end up being entertained by seeing all the flaws and figuring out how the film could have been better.

The DVD is not good. It looks very low budget anyway, but the muddy, scratchy transfer doesnt help.

You're NOBODY 'Til Somebody Loves You--And We Do!
Shundo Ohkawa's NOBODY has its flaws, mainly a finale which explodes over the top and plummets back to earth, but it also has great performances from heartthrob Masaya Kato (DRIVE, CRYING FREEMAN, CRIME BROKER, THE SEVENTH FLOOR, and lots of Japanese films)and tough guy Riki Takeuchi, as well as genuine aura of suspense.

In NOBODY, Ohkawa tells a Hitchcock-like tale of an ordinary guy suddenly plunged in over his head. Set in the regimented world of Japanese business, Ohkawa's story is about a social gaffe which mushrooms into ever escalating violence and terror.

Taki(Masaya Kato)is a junior advertising executive who is always well-groomed and well-spoken; Nanbu (Riki Takeuchi)is a hot-shot and hot-tempered sales rep; Korishi (Hideo Nakano) is a self-effacing accountant. Their friendship is more a product of their coworker status than any deep affinity, and they share drinks rather than confidences. One night, when the three are having afterhour drinks at a bar, they notice three men at an adjoining table. The men, at first glance, are just like them--but further inspection shows something off-kilter. Nanbu makes some comments which are overheard (very bad form in group-conscious Japanese society), and the strangers start a "what are you looking at?" face-off. Taki tries to defuse the situation, and it seems to work in an unspoken effort with the leader of the other group. When Korishi lags behind as the buddies depart, however, the strange trio isolates and savagely attacks him. Several days later, the buddies pass one of the trio in a deserted subway walkway, and with recognition comes retaliation. Nanbu loses all control and beats the stranger viciously, until he is unconscious and possibly dead. The buddies panic and leave. The next day, Taki searches for news reports of a body, but finds none. Are they off the hook? Not once the calls start coming.

Who are those guys? What do they want? Where will it end? How did this happen? These are only some of the questions explored in Ohkawa's taut thriller. For Japanese audiences, the film examined many facets of their lifestyle and social structure. While the cultural subtleties (such as the significance of Taki always wearing his father's expensive designer ties)may not translate to all audiences, the plight of an ordinary (but not innocent) man caught in a maelstrom of circumstances, drowning in terror, is quite compelling in Ohkawa's grand tale of suspense. ... Read more

Description

Created to help control the population of Jesus Town, Hakaider was abandoned and left for dead once his uncontrollable nature became apparent. Now, his creator Gurjev has a new cyborg-enforcer, Michael. When treasure hunters accidentally awake Hakaider from his long slumber, he decides to bring his own justice to Jesus Town. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Stop That Android!!
Japanese use the term tokusatsu films for what we might call 'special effects' films. Our closest equivalent would be the unending Startrek series (with the addition of some robots in latex suits. The term covers a wide range of sins, from the complex ongoing Super Sentai series to pleasantly simplistic (and violent) films like the one under discussion here - Hakaider. Jinzo Nigen Hakaider (Mechanical Man Hakaider) is loosely based on a previous tokusatsu series about Kikaider - an android superhero. He was one of the villains in that series, but in this film his body is discovered by treasure hunters and is reanimated.

At the start of the film we find the camera following a dark figure wearing a menacing samurai mask as he rides a modernistic motorcycle into Jesus Town. In this post-apocalyptic world, the android finds itself siding with rebels. His opponents are Gurjev, a mad ruler and his android associate, Michael. This is one of those films where the good guy looks like a bad guy and the bad guys are all wearing white suits. The simple plot follows Kikaider as he enters Jesus town and comes in contact with the rebels. When Kaoru, a beautiful young raider, falls afoul of the regime, Hakaider builds a full head of steam and takes on the entire establishment in a series of ever more dramatic confrontations.

This is the second of Keita Amemiya's films, and while it is better made (and less silly) than Zeiram 2, this is the Amemiya film with the least amount of plot and character. Instead it's capital is special effects, costumes, and violence. All of which it does quite well for a low budget thriller. Once again Amemiya demonstrates a flair for scene setting and character design. The downside is his penchant for vacuous dialog but, in the light science fiction of its time, perfection was not an option.

There is a great deal of strong Christian symbolism in the film, which an American viewer may find misleading. As in Evangelion, one has to remember that the Christian framework is as mysterious as the Japanese mystical framework is to us. Amemiya uses Christianity to add mystery and a sense of the occult, not to advocate and religious position. The film is meant to be enjoyed, particularly with a good supply of popcorn, not to make an indelible mark on cinematic history.

wiseless comments
Well, just try to not be so lame ^_^ Hakaider (aka hakaida) is the evil guy from the early '70s kikaider (kikaida) live shows...so find a coment about terminator,mad max even alien (1979 If I remember it well) is a bit absurd :) Also note that power rangers are a poor (american)version of other oldie japanese "tokusatsu" heroes.
Japanese old character concepts are very imaginative.This is a '90s point of view of an old badass turned into anti-hero. It's big, It's bad, and it's gonna blow away anyone who cross it's path.Also the movie is spiced with some goth,ciberpunk and religion concepts,making goodie-scouts look as not too good boys (same to evil ones in this film)Film plays with black and white concepts.Amusing future action movie that is not a matrixspawn being :)

This Is Nothing Original
Hakaider is one strange film, but it also appears to be gleemed from several sources. I identified things from "Spawn", "The Road Warrior", "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", "Terminator 2", "Alien" (1 and 2); the list continues ad infinitum. The odd thing is that after a point, all these elements fuse together to be owned by this film in it's own right.
The sets are fantastic, some of the most engaging I've seen (even better than some movies with much larger budgets).
However, the one thing I had a problem getting around were the robot costumes. I kept getting the feeling I was watching the Sex Pistols version of "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers".
This film is large on action and short on believability, not to mention the very bad job on the English subtitles. There were points where the translations made no sense what so ever, sentences were left unfinished and even a very few times when there weren't any.
I spent about [price] retail on this, which is a fair price for this film. Any more than that and I would have been pretty PO'd.
This more of a kids movie, but with some of the graphic violence, consider first what you want the kid exposed to. I won't let mine watch this till she turns 14 atleast.

JINZO NINGEN HAKAIDER IS A WRECKING BALL!!
Okay, I am a little biased because i'm a huge Kikaider and Hakaider fan, but i have to say this movie was actually pretty good for an early work. They revamped the suit to make it a little more sleek and well, more menacing. The atmosphere prett dark, which was actually a pleasant change for me. Hakaider, who gets awakened by robbers, sets out to jesus town where he fights police androids and meets up with a resistance group. Hakaider takes to a woman in the resistance group; when they are found and almost everyone is killed (except for the girl of course), Hakaider decides to take vengence and heads to the head quarters to fight Michael (or Mikhail or something) to the death.
I really don't call this a feature because it's surprisingly short, but the action is there and will have you slightly giggling through some parts of the movie because of it's wacky violence. There was really no character development in this movie, maybe due to the fact this movie was shorter than trip to the toilet. What was kind of funny was that they really didn't explain exactly who or what he is, except for that sketchy little story at the end. I still have no idea if that is Professor Gill's brain or not, since they revamped the whole origin, i guess not. Also, for those who have seen the series, you can see Kikaiders head in the final confrontation between the two machines, it was an incredible laugh, which makes me wonder, when is there going to be a cool Kikaider movie?

Something bad is going down in Jesus Town!
Keita Amamiya (Moon of Toa, Zeiram) makes somewhat bizarre and slightly surreal special effects films. This is one of his early ones, and isn't quite as refined as his later work. Still it's quite an amazing little film.

This film is basically a remake of the 1970s TV series Kaikaider (the 2000 remake of the anime will be distributed by Bandai in the US next year), except Keita has basically set it in a post apocalyptic world, and the evil robot is the good guy, and the hero robot is evil (well, he thinks he is upholding justice anyways). Its kinda like Terminator meets Mad Max but slightly less grungy.

Haikaider is awakened by a bunch of treasure hunters, and proceeds to do away with them in a very violent manner. He is in fact a creation made by Guru Jeff, the extremely insane ruler of Jesus Town. In this town Guru Jeff rules with an iron fist, and an iron android called Michael (who loves to kill humans). Anybody who disobeys Jeff has a chip placed in their head to control their emotions. Haikaider was Jeff's creation, but a failed one. Haikaider decides to kill Jeff, and goes to Jesus Town to violently kill as many of Jeff's guards as possible. There he meets and befriends Keiko and her motley band of revolutionaries who want to over throw their oppressor. And you can just imagine the chaos that ensures for the rest of the film.

OK so it's silly. It's laughable at some points. But in terms of effort and story it amazingly beats a lot of American sci-fi movies and TV series. And it was made on a budget of about $1 million, and looks bloody amazing! Most of the special effects work really well, and the stunts are great. The robot suits are cool, and Keiko's dream sequences are really surreal (if a little cheesy). The only other problem I had with the film was the footage re-inserted to make this extended 'Director's Cut'. Obviously Keita wasn't able to shoot all the scenes he wanted to, and in a couple of spots, scenes don't flow together well and it feels a little jarring. Overall quite a decent little sci-fi film if you you're prepared not to take it too seriously. ... Read more

Reviews (26)

Superb anime version of solid crime-themed Japanese manga
CRYING FREEMAN: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER (1988) is the first of six Japanese anime volumes based on the manga (comic book) by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami about a handsome young sculptor who is forcibly recruited by the 108 Dragons, an ancient organization of Chinese assassins. We see him trained as an assassin and programmed to kill on their orders. His uncontrolled stream of tears after each killing and his yearning to be free give him the name, Crying Freeman.

Things get complicated when Freeman is forced to undertake the elimination of a witness to one of his killings. She is a beautiful, lonely, single Japanese woman and, like Freeman, an accomplished artist. They recognize each other as soul mates and he risks his life'and hers'to convince the organization of her value to him.

This 52-minute animated production is almost a perfect adaptation of the manga story and stands out as the best of the CRYING FREEMAN animated series. The dramatic mood and visual elegance of the black-and-white drawings are surprisingly well-captured by the anime, despite the bright colors and lighting. Daisuke Nishio, the anime director, knows how to pace a scene and establish the proper sense of time and place. It helps that Ikegami's drawings and his sense of cutting and composition are so astutely cinematic in the first place.

The Crying Freeman manga is notable for its high doses of nudity, near-pornographic sex and extremely bloody violence. The anime doesn't stint on these elements either, although it takes great pains to stay within R-rated limits. However, the sheer beauty of their presentation here may win over otherwise hesitant viewers, while fully satisfying the already jaded fans of more hard-edged anime.

The "Crying Freeman" manga has also been adapted, considerably less faithfully, into two live-action films, CRYING FREEMAN (France, 1995), directed by Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) and starring Mark Dacascos, and KILLER'S ROMANCE (Hong Kong, 1990), starring Simon Yam and Joey Wang.

Truly a Work of Art
Crying Freeman is a true work of art ahead of its time. Viewing this great anime is candy for the anime lover's eye. Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami wrote the magna that turned into a smash hit. The plot is revolves around an assassin from the Chinese Mafia. Originally, an acclaimed pottery designer, Yoh Hinamura is drawn into a crime ring when he finds film that contains photographs of a murder. Brainwashed to be a killer he murders people and after every person, he kills, he weeps.

When a woman by the name of Emu Hino (age 29 and a virgin) witnesses a murder. They briefly and awkwardly talk for a moment before Yoh flees. Afterward she fears for her life.
When the Chinese Mafia, a drug and arms dealing business, expands into Japan police and a Japanese gang with a following of 26,000 members team up to stop the Mafia. In the first episode "Portrait of a Killer" Freeman, setting the plot into motion, assassinates the leader of the Japan gang. At that crime, by chance Freeman runs past Yoh. Their eyes never meet but she knows it was him.

When Freeman goes to assassinate Emu, she tells him that she knows she will be killed. Her final request is that she does not die a virgin. (Over protective late father kept her from experiencing love). She tells that she is a virgin to Yoh and he states that he is also a virgin. They have sex, revealing Yoh's intricate dragon tattoos. Both experiencing love for the first time, they start to car for each other and speeding up the process, she is shot in a scuffle immediately after they have sex. He rushes her to the hospital. Knowing that she will never be safe, he takes her in.

This anime is not for children or young teens for that matter. Crying Freeman has a mix of mild language with a large amount of upper nudity and several sexual orientations. All of this is heavily coated with pools of blood. This is a graphic anime but as stated earlier, this is geared toward a mature audience.

Recap: Beautiful anime that pushed the boundaries of acceptable anime when released in 1986. Till this day, Crying Freeman is still a crowd please. I loved it. If you are looking an anime with class but still contains a sexual and action packed adventure then you have found the right anime. Five Stars!

5 Stars From Me
I have all the volumes and love each one although the last two aren't as good as the first. The episodes start repeating themselves after a while. In the first, Freeman's origin of how he is turned into an assassin against his will is revealed and he cries each time he kills somebody as a release to his true self. He is sent to kill a woman but she doesn't want to die a virgin so she asks that he have sex with her before he kills her. Being the nice guy that he is, he agrees. He says he's also a virgin. I think he was lying. This guy has sex with pretty much every woman he meets in this series. He didn't start having sex until he met this woman in the first episode? I don't believe it. Anyway, he falls in love with her and marries her. The rest of the episodes go something like this: somebody or some group wants to kill Freeman and take over the 108 Dragons and Freeman stops them. That's pretty much it. Oh yea, plenty of killing, nudity and sex is thrown in. Some lovable characters are thrown in and some die sadly but it's all good. For me, the only let down is Freeman never becomes free. At the end of the series he is still a killer. I was expecting a breakthrough. His soul is obviously being tortured since he cries after he ki