Hong chang fei long

'Dragon From Russia' Tells the Story of Yo an artist who is kidnapped while fleeing Russia with his Girlfriend and her family, He soon finds himself chained to a mysterious Martial Arts master and begins to teach him the ways of being an assassin.

This action classic directed by the brilliant Clarence Fok is taken from the Manga comic book 'Crying Freeman' and is one of the best comic adaptations out there with scenes lifted directly from the pages of the comic itself.

The cast is well put together Sam Hui handles himself well in the leas role of the Free Man while Maggie Cheung puts gives a touching performance as the woman he loves. Another interesting performance comes from Jet Li's wife Nina Li Chi who plays an assassin fighting along side Yo, which makes a refreshing change from her role in 'Tiger On The Beat' in which she receives a rather brutal ass kicking from Chow Yun Fat, but thats a different movie all together.

But one thing which made this movie spectacular was Yuen Clan member Yuen Tak, who co-stars in the movie as both Yo's master with the rubber face and Yo's assistant.

Each fight is expertly choreographed and exciting to watch, showing that each Yuen clan member has their own unique and energetic style.

All in all a fun action film to watch especially if fans of the Crying Freeman comic would like to find something different to that of the western version starring Mark Decascos, which has to be said is a good flick as well.

This is a very BAD adaptation of the manga "Crying Freeman", the basic story line behind the film is absolutely CRAP! The fight scenes are poorly choreographed.

Overall a extremely dumb movie.

If you want to watch a good movie check out the actual live action version of the Manga "Crying Freeman", starring Mark Domasco

Oddly enough, given my nearly 40 years of Maggie Cheung fandom, then I never have seen this 1990 movie titled "Hong Chang Fei Long" (aka "The Dragon from Russia") before now in 2025. Sure, I knew that it existed, but I just never had the opportunity to sit down and watch it before now.

The storyline in the movie was adequate, but far from being outstanding. Writers Ella Bo-wah Chan, Ryoichi Ikegami and Kazuo Koike spent a bit too long time on the training sequences of Yiu Lung (played by Samuel Hui), which made the movie feel dragged out and monotonous at times. There are some similarities to the "Crying Freeman" movie or Manga to be sure, whether it was intentional or not, I have no idea.

The acting performances in the movie were good. There were a couple of familiar faces on the screen, aside from Maggie Cheung, with the likes of Samuel Hui and Loletta Lee.

There is a fair amount of action and fighting sequences throughout the course of the 94 minutes that the movie ran for, and they certainly helped to lift up the movie.

Watchable, sure, but hardly an extraordinary movie, so I hadn't been missing out on a grand cinematic gem here.

My rating of director Clarence Fok's 1990 movie "Hong Chang Fei Long" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Mark Dacascos was the actor who played the role of the masked assassin who sheds tears each time he kills a victim in the American version of this story, entitled CRYING FREEMAN and released in 1995. I mildly liked that film when I saw it; sure, it was no classic, it was a little cheesy, but it passed the time in a fairly entertaining fashion. Sad, then, that this earlier, Hong Kong-made outing, based on the same manga, turns out to be a bit of a dud and a lot worse than the Hollywood attempt.

The main problem I have with this movie is that which blights much of the Hong Kong action industry during the 1990s: the overuse of wirework. Why have two characters battling mano-a-mano when you can have them flying and flipping through the air and performing all manner of physically impossible stunts? Er, well realism is a good reason actually, but realism goes out of the window in DRAGON FROM Russia.

For an action-packed movie like this, it's a real shame that most of the fights are so over the top as to be laughable. Don't get me wrong, there are some occasionally solid moments, usually when things calm down a bit or are based on a smaller scale, like a kinetic bout at a train station that progresses into a moving train. In addition, the storyline is extremely muddled, taking about half the running time before things really get moving. These factors combine to make this a difficult watch.

Along the way, there's a lot of laboured comedy relief which sits at odds with the supposedly emotive central plot, a strange, rubber-faced bad guy (played by Yuen Tak, one of the seven Yuens along with Jackie, Yuen Biao, Sammo and Yuen Wah, who also has a non-masked supporting role), an extremely slow spot during the middle section where absolutely nothing happens, some lame romance, an entirely extraneous Maggie Cheung (as per usual) and a few nicely-staged assassinations. Sadly, the ending fizzles rather than goes out with a bang, and the whole thing is so convoluted that it's impossible to take seriously. In this instance, I'll take the American version over the Chinese, I think

I am flabbergasted by just how bad this movie is. It makes Christophe Gans' 1994 remake look like a friggin masterpiece. This movie has all the things wrong with kung fu films made by Hong Kong in the early '90s -- it's stupid, contrived, and completely mindboggling in its badness. Avoid at all cost.