Product Details

• Format: Animated, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English, Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rating: NC-17
• Studio: Adv Films
• DVD Release Date: January 27, 2004
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00011ZBV6
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #81,858 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Crying Freeman: The Complete Collection" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The bloody story of an assassin who silently weeps for his victims, Crying Freeman began as a 1986 manga by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami. In addition to this six-part OVA, the story has been filmed twice in live action. The leaders of the Chinese Mafia known as the 108 Dragons brainwash ceramicist Yoh Hinamura and transform him into the ultimate assassin. Virginal artist Emu Hino witnesses a killing by Yoh, but when he comes to murder her, she seduces him and wins his heart. Defying the syndicate, he refuses to give her up. Emu and Yoh subsequently become the bosses of the 108 Dragons. They run the organization--whose illegal activities are tactfully glossed over--on the principles of honor and absolute loyalty extolled in live-action Yakuza movies.

Like true love, the course of mob business seldom runs smoothly, and the body count for the entire series runs into the thousands. Hit men and women are dispatched with knives, throwing knives, swords, karate chops, pistols, machine guns, grenades, missiles, and electricity. As the plot grows more baroque, the animation grows more limited. After a certain point, the images of knives penetrating skulls, full-body tattoos, bare breasts, and awkwardly animated sexual encounters become monotonous, but Crying Freeman is definitely not for the squeamish or prudish. (Rated 17 and older, but more appropriate for 18 and older: graphic violence, violence against women, rape, torture, ethnic stereotypes, extensive nudity, explicit sexual situations) --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb anime version of solid crime-themed Japanese manga, August 21, 2002

By	Brian Camp (Bronx, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Crying Freeman 1: Portrait Killer [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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 lifeand hersto 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 Ikegamis 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 doesnt 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 KILLERS ROMANCE (Hong Kong, 1990), starring Simon Yam and Joey Wang.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NOT ANIME!!!, May 5, 2006

By	Ken Davis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crying Freeman [Region 2] (DVD)

This is the LIVE ACTION VERSION of the Crying Freeman anime. This is a truly well done masterpeice of a film. Mark Dacasca's potrayed The Freeman perfectly. This by far one of the best if not the best live action adaption of an anime film. But seriously folks, No film is worth 99 dollars. I don't care if it is the film to end all films. They will sooner or later put this on DVD for 20 dollars.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a Work of Art, December 19, 2003

By	Uryo (Akron, OH United States) - See all my reviews

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!