Dragon from Russia (1990)

Dragon from Russia is the first film adaptation of the popular Japanese manga series, Crying Freeman. A French-American adaptation was later released by director Christophe Gans in 1995 as Crying Freeman and it put the competent martial arts star Mark Dacascos in the title role. For the Hong Kong version, Canto-pop singer and actor Sam Hui was the unlikely third choice who landed the role after the director’s desire to snag Andy Lau and then Yuen Biao fell through. Though filled with quality wire-fu action courtesy of stuntman-turned-action director Yuen Tak, problematic shooting, casting troubles, studio interference, and budget constraints all contribute to what becomes a disastrous train wreck of erratic editing, confused direction, and a bewildering plot.

The premise itself isn’t too hard to figure out, but it’s presented in such an awkward and fast-paced fashion that it becomes unnecessarily complex and virtually impossible to keep up with. Trouble arises immediately as unknown fighters duke it out in the opening sequence. We eventually learn that these are two rival leaders, ‘Master of Death’ and Kishudo, of underground criminal organizations devoted to training assassins and sending them to kill each other. The narrative jumps over to Russia where Master of Death’s exiled student (Dean Shek Tin) is hiding out with one of his own students, Yao Lung (Sam Hui). Yao is an orphan who shares a love with May Yip (Maggie Cheung) and all seems well until Master catches up with them and decides to kidnap, brainwash, and train Yao to be his secret weapon to kill his arch rival.

At this point the film appears to have a major conflict with itself, as what should be a moody and gritty actioner throughout, turns into a comedic old school-like training session in the country. Yao is tethered to the Master by a single shackle and endures months of exercises, shoving hands into roasting walnuts, and learning to serve rice with his toes, all while lightly romancing Master’s bubbly daughter (Rachel Lee). It should be noted that the Master of Death is a pretty unusual fellow and it has nothing to do with the original script. Acrobatic legend Yuen Wah was tapped to play the role, but only managed to fulfill five days of shooting in Russia while wearing a scarf to obscure his features. Wah’s former schoolmate Yuen Tak had already taken over action choreography and had a small role in the film. He was then asked to step in to double Wah for the rest of the film. To do this, he was given a mildly grotesque prosthetic face alteration and a goofy dubbed voice. Tak turns the Master into a formidable fighter, but the character suffers greatly since his “face” remains expressionless and artificial.

Yao is eventually rechristened ‘Freeman,” dons his mask, and begins assassinating targets as instructed, while shedding a single tear for each as sign of his ingrained reluctance to kill. But when he goes after Kishudo, Yao meets up with May Yip again. This unsettles his conditioning and leads him to turn on the Master as corrupt police close in and his fellow assassins choose sides.

The only real highlight of this film is the action which has a few faults of its own. The use of frequent, quick camera cuts dilutes the fight scenes and some of the other action content is just moronic, for lack of a better description. At one point, Yao’s pistol runs out of ammo. He tosses it at the baddies and it explodes like a grenade. Towards the end, more ballistic action leads Yao’s car to be thoroughly perforated by assault rifle fire at near point blank range from dozens of attackers, but he and his companions do not get a scratch. Gratuitous explosions follow. On a happy note the wire-fu is particularly creative and slick. The end fight between Freeman and the Master of Death is the best. It features some great slow motion flipping and Freeman’s unusual use of his toes to wield a knife. There are competent fights scattered throughout the film that suffer from too much undercranking and more importantly, a lack of setup. In other words, fights just happen between characters that come and go, with no effort made to draw the audience in. But Yuen Tak deserves credit for stepping up to play two major characters and choreographing all of the fights. He’s the only stuntman in Hong Kong to have come from the Chinese opera school where Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung emerged, in addition to being mentored by Lau Kar-leung, who was a bit of a rival to Sammo in the late seventies. The result is that Tak really has the skills and experience to make great action happen and this is one of the first films that shows off his true potential behind the camera.

As a whole, Dragon from Russia feels like a rough cut or a series of disjointed scenes. As comic book adaptation, there is a strong Japanese influence in the art direction, but it’s crudely done. Sam Hui is decent as an action lead, but he isn’t right for the role. His character also gets lost in the story among many other characters. Watching Maggie Chueng in this film is bittersweet. She’s beautiful, full of depth, and the camera definitely favors her. But her role is small and then you quickly realize that she’s in a film far beneath her talents as an actress. She easily outshines everyone else in the film, a point Maggie Q made in an interview with Bey Logan, and I must agree. Cinema City also made a bad decision in watering down the adult theme of the original story. This should be a very violent and sexy film and its not. In fact, it seems that Clarence Ford makes a half-hearted effort by throwing in a shower scene, but the lady is wearing a one-piece bathing suit. Then Maggie Cheung walks into a shower stall fully dressed! This goes back to the fact that the film is sloppily made despite some great elements.

Few of the manga-to-film adaptations have been any good. City Hunter, Gans’ Crying Freeman, and the lesser-known Dragonball Z live-action film have been disappointments. A notable exception is the Lone Wolf and Cub series, but Dragon from Russia falls firmly into the dismal majority. As a cohesive film, it’s a mess that desperately needed to be reigned in. But it still possesses enough excessive martial arts action to warrant a viewing by forgiving audiences.