Event

CRYING FREEMAN

CRYING FREEMAN
Dir. Christophe Gans, 1995
USA, 102 min.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13 MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, AUGUST 26 MIDNIGHT

Adapted from the classic manga by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami and featuring one of the proudest VANCOUVER, B.C. title cards in cinema history, CRYING FREEMAN stars Mark Dacascos as its nominal assassin, a weepy and beautiful slab of a man whose chiseled contours do not go unnoticed by Thomas Burstyns wide-canvas cinematography.Working on behalf of the sons of the dragons, Freeman exists as a myth haunting Yakuza apparatchiks from night to night, while his romance with a murder witness on their list named Emu (Julie Condra) takes up a significant portion of the movies runtime. This being the directorial debut of the man who would go on to direct 2001s needlessly pizzazz-freighted BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, CRYING FREEMAN abides over the decades for the scope and poignancy of its big-budget aspirations.

What separates CRYING FREEMAN from other comic adaptations of the late pre-digital cinema epoch is Gans piercing command of comic-worthy tableaux, Patrick OHearns remarkably icy orchestral score, and the films otherwise whistle-inducing musculature of production design. The hideous CGI dragons bracketing the opening credits barely taste at what CRYING FREEMAN is able to accomplish on a budget approximately one-sixth that of, say, David Finchers SE7EN. Long before youve seen a bourbon fireball spewed from one mans mouth into anothers face over an executive-suite sized table in almost Marilyn Minter-worthy slow motion, youll know (or hazily remember) Gans insane fugue-state John Woo knockoff for the sublimity that it truly is.