The Dragon from Russia
1990 film by Clarence Fok

The Dragon from Russia is a 1990 Hong Kong martial arts action film directed by Clarence Fok and based on the Japanese manga Crying Freeman and written by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami, and also produced by Dean Shek, and starring Sam Hui, Maggie Cheung, Nina Li Chi, Carrie Ng, Loletta Lee and guest starring Shek in his second-to-last film appearance before retiring from acting in two years later.
Plot
Yao Lung and May Yip are orphans who live in Russia with their adoptive family. Through the years, the two fall in love and promise that they will be together forever. One fateful day, Yao witnesses a murder being committed by a mysterious assassin. Shortly after this, he is captured and brainwashed by a mysterious cult of assassins that call themselves "800 Dragons".
After losing his memory of his past, he is forced to take very strict martial arts training to become the perfect assassin for the 800 Dragons.
During one of his missions, Yao is seen by May, his past lover who is still looking for him. The code of the 800 Dragons is that anyone who sees an assassin during their mission needs to be killed. But Yao begin to remember his past when May talks to him about their past relationship. Yao decides to follow his heart instead of the strict code of the assassin by not killing May.
The public source identifies “The Dragon from Russia” as 1990 film by Clarence Fok. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dragon, Russia and film.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5305321. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Dragon from Russia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.