A História de Ricky

"Riki Oh" is a frightening piece of work. Some of the bizarrest stuff ever put on celluloid to my knowledge. Every single frame is bursting with insanity and confusion. Don't even try to understand it, you might as well try to divide large numbers in your head for an hour and a half.

Riki is a very hunky prisoner in a future where corporations control everything. I know this information because the producers felt it necessary to put this in TWO different captions at the start of the film. Just so we know.

Young Riki gets into a lot of trouble both with the guards and his fellow inmates. This allows him to rip his shirt off a lot and expose his flexed chest (Seriously, the guy takes his shirt about once every thirty seconds. He puts it back on just so he can take it off again.).

Somehow Riki was given supernatural powers that really help in a prison riot. You see Riki can punch through just about anything, be it animal, mineral or vegetable. He punches through walls, desks, pipes, bars, and lots of human bodies. Yes that's correct, he punches through people. Their arms, legs, stomachs, and sometimes heads.

This excessive violence lends the film to excessive gore. We're talking spilled jugs of Kool-Aid excessive. And you get to see it all; although the worst gore is rarely on screen for more than a split second. Still you get to see a guy eat razors, a person explode like a balloon and one guy get put in a huge meat grinder. Yummy!

The copy I saw was dubbed, and that only added to the fun. I recommend this movie, solely for goofing on it. Otherwise, it is a very bad film. Only for those with a good sense of humor. You have been warned.

Ngai Kai Lam, the director of the first and best "Erotic Ghost Story", captained this magnificent gore- and fight-fest set in an unconventional Hong Kong prison. It is so gleefully over-the-top that it exists in its own ludicrous stratosphere and is one of the most memorable Hong Kong exploitation films ever made. Siu-Wong Fan is terrific as Riki-oh, a meditative lad who is imprisoned for defending his girlfriend's honor. Possessing almost supernatural strength and fighting prowess, he is forced to fight The Gang of Four, a bunch of crazy, imprisoned superhero types who appear to control the prison's inmates with the approval of the corrupt, one-eyed assistant aarden (Mui Sang Fan), keeper of a massive porno mag collection and owner of a screw-on hook he uses to cart human trash away. The blood-soaked scenes of violence are hilarious and grotesque. Guts are ripped from a man's stomach and used to strangle him. Birds peck out an eyeball. Heads are squashed until they explode. Ricki even knocks down a prison wall with one nasty punch. Originally a Japanese manga (and there's an animated version, too), "The Story of Ricky" has a great, bombastic score, ultra-bloody effects, operatic performances, and a fat Japanese boy, too. It all adds up to top notch entertainment for the whole family.

A man jailed for getting his revenge on those who (indirectly) killed his girlfriend gets sent to the prison of the future. While in prison, he discovers an opium greenhouse (not cleverly hidden) and fights plenty of guards, inmates and the warden.

I gave this film a ten, not because it is a cinematic masterpiece... but because this film stands alone as something that can never be equaled. You will not walk away from this film the same person. Its kiss is like jackhammer; when it is through with you, you are changed.

The violence is excessive to the point of being funny -- walls and body parts exploding. It was hard to tell if this film was supposed to be a comedy or action because while the plot is serious, the action is outrageous. And sometimes you can too easily tell that a body part is a model or that walls are being pulled apart by strings.

The dubbing is really funny, and the use of multiple subtitles (in both British English and American English) is amusing. The film probably deserves a decent transfer and better subtitles, but that might take something away from this film's immense cheese factor. The characters are pretty interesting -- a warden who can transform into the Incredible Hulk and his assistant with one eye and a hook for a hand (who has a wall full of pornographic videos).

If you liked the gore of something like "Terror Firmer", you will find this to be in a similar vein (though, in my opinion, far less offensive). If you do not like blood in your movies, you want to run away from this as quickly as possible. But heck, this is seriously something you cannot go through life without seeing. Highest possible recommendation.

Close second to "Dead Alive" as goriest film ever made. Rivers of ridiculously over-exaggerated red will fill your screen and turn your stomach.

Riki was just an innocent (though super-powered, think Mr. Incredible) youth until the day his girlfriend was killed in a botched rape attempt by gangsters. After dealing out his bloody revenge he is carted off to prison where he wishes to serve his sentence as peacefully and undisturbed as he can. However, this pseudo sci-fi Asian prison is any thing but peaceful. Prison film clichés ensue (ie. corrupt guards, an evil warden, an escape attempt).

Technically speaking, the movie isn't very good. The sets lack believability, the dialogue is pretty horrible, and the acting is way over board. The bad guys seem to be bad because they can be...either that or they are just bored, one or the other. Outside of Riki, there is no background attached to any of the characters and none of them are ever developed properly. Additionally, the plentiful fight scenes aren't choreographed very well. Top it all off with some of the cheesiest kung-fu dubs ever recorded and you have a film suffering from lack of talent.

So why the positive score? This is a damn fun movie, that's why. Each and every fight scene ends with a gory display of gruesome blood letting. Heads crushed, stomachs torn open, eyes popped out, faces cut off, one villain even tries to strangle Riki with his own intestines. Amidst the crimson flow, the dumb-as-a-brick story is awash in unintentional humor; the more serious it takes itself the funnier it is. Even the gore itself makes for a joke, it's so over the top it ceases to offend and becomes a sight gag.

Main stream viewers will not get this movie and will simply not like it. Genre fans, however, will find the holy grail of gore flicks.

8/10

STORY OF RICKY is a really fun, gory mix of kung-fu action, horror and comedy all in one. The deal: Ricky is sent to prison after he kills the guys that murder his girlfriend. Ricky gets on the wrong side of the corrupt prison guards and inmates that run the prison when he champions the causes of the weaker inmates...But little do the enemies know that Ricky is a comic-bookesque beast of a fighter - and he proceeds to prove his skills in several gory (and oftentimes hilarious) fight scenes. The acting is ridiculous, the Fx are mostly cheesy, the English language dub is so horrible it's hilarious (and honestly one of the best parts of the film...), and an ending that is completely retarded, STORY OF RICKY is just plain fun. Plenty of the red stuff to keep the goreheads happy, and anyone who enjoys B-movies should really appreciate this one. definitely recommended 8 1/2 out of 10