Crying Freeman: Portrait of a Killer v. 2

Ｃｒｙｉｎｇフリーマン [Crying Freeman] #2

by Ryōichi Ikegami, Kazuo Koike

Crying Freeman sold a total of 10 million copies around the world. The latest English translation is now released in ebook (all in nine volumes). In 1996, it was made into a Hollywood movie. Yo Hinomura is sent to Hong Kong as an assassin. The plan of 108 dragons is to train Yo thoroughly and make him a first class assassin. During his training he learns the ways of an assassin by the wife of the 108 dragons…

Genres: Manga, Comics

Paperback

First published December 17, 1986

About the author

Ryōichi Ikegami (池上遼一) is a manga artist. He was assistant to manga artist Shigeru Mizuki in 1966. In 2001, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for general manga as the artist of Heat. He became a professor at Osaka University of Arts in 2005.

Ikegami has worked on several popular series, such as Mai, the Psychic Girl with writer Kazuya Kudo, Crying Freeman, with writer Kazuo Koike, as well as Sanctuary and Heat with writer Sho Fumimura. He also wrote and drew Spider-Man: The Manga, a manga version of Spider-Man and collaborated with Garon Tsuchiya for the manga BOX (BOX 暗い箱). His most recent work is Lord currently serialized in Big Comic Superior.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Crying Freeman was a movie I saw by the director Christopher Ganz and it was both stylish, brutal and romantic. Of course I was not known with the source material being manga.
Anyhow I cam across this book and being a fan of the movie I decided to have a look and read.
It is about a man who does make great pottery who falls into the hands of a secret organisation that trains him to be a great assassin , the Freeman, and because hé cries a tear after each kill hé is called the crying Freeman. Simple really.
Hé kills a lot of influencial people and on one day falls for a woman whom witnessed of one of his killings. He takes her home where she and hé find love in eachother.
However she is a beacon of light in the darkness where hé hides. However the widow of a Yakusa lord killed by the hand of this assassin finds them through her simply because she has a face that sticks out whereas the Freeman is unknown. And thus violence commences.
The art of this collected Manga comic is actually very beautifull in its black and white, the story quite entertaining and there is plenty of sex which was somewhat surprising. Whereas western art would be considered explicit, the eastern art does leave some to the imagination.
As a result an enjoyable read that was as visual as the French movie, but one can see how the movie was influenced by this manga comicbook.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3 stars.

[leynou · Rating 1 out of 5]

boring