Dragon from Russia

Dragon from Russia is sort of a live action of Crying Freeman but very different than the french version!What struck me here was the action: there is a good amount of fights which were awesome, especially the climactic one!! They use wires in the fight scenes but they didn't distract me at all.(The Church scene is an instant classic!) As long as you don't expect action from Maggie Cheung, this movie will satisfy the average action lover!!........................................9/10

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

'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.

To call "Dragon from Russia" a better movie than the Christopher Ganz version of "Crying Freeman" is simply wrong! Christopher Ganz's version is a real masterpiece and certainly compared to this crap! They changed quite a bit in the story from the manga: 1. the main character isn't a Japanese potter as it should be 2. the woman he has to kill isn't an artist but a dancer 3. the woman he has to kill is a lover from the main character's past before he became the crying freeman 4. they don't show that the main character is hypnotized. In this movie he just doesn't remember his past,how convenient! 5. dragon from Russia, the main character suppose to be Japanese,duhhh! 6. the "108 dragons" are a serious cult of assassins who put the fear in god of their enemies! In here the members and the leader are a bunch of fools who betray each other every chance they get! All of this could have been ignored if the action was top notch! There certainly is a lot of action! The problem is that with exception of a few action scenes the action isn't that special! The martial arts is average and too much wirefu which in this case is annoying! I really wanted to like this movie,but I can't it is just too bad!

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.