Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991)

Too much of everything

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Reading a UK movie mag when Baby Driver was about to come out,I noticed an interesting interview with film maker Edgar Wright,who picked this a a "cult film" rec.Making a note of the title,the arrival of a Hong Kong challenge on ICM led to deciding it was the perfect time to meet Riki-Oh.View on the film:Becoming the first flick to be given a CAT III rating for violence in Hong Kong,co-writer/(with Masahiko Takajo) director Ngai Choi Lam & cinematographer Hoi-Man Mak wear it with pride, by pounding the screen with an endless splatter parade. Smartly deciding to point the action and gore in an animated Grindhouse direction (the film ended up not doing well in HK) Lam gives everything a handmade quality with excellent the rubbery practical effects and gallons of fake blood vividly bursting open in slo-mo Kung-fu fights.Pulled from Tetsuya Saruwatari's Manga/ Comic-Book, Lam and Takajo adaptation is given satirical jabs by the baddies being The Gang of Four, (changed to The Four Heavenly Kings in the Asia cut)and Riki-Oh trying to re-gain freedom from the prison walls The Gang of Four have placed round him. Hitting a konck-out, gore-drenched punch from the opening, the writers cast a rich,pulp atmosphere via the minimalist back-story of Riki-Oh being filled in mid-battle,with each fight brilliantly building up like a Comic-Book run,as Riki-Oh discovers new powers after each victory. Only 18 at the time,Siu-Wong Fan gives a blistering performance which highlights the never say die attitude in Riki-Oh's story.

This movie is very faithful to the manga and is one of the best adaptations out there. People may be put off by the cheap look of the film but the core story is great.+) Very violent fight scenes and over the top moments that you will remember for a long long time. These include Ricky gutting an overweight man with his bare fist, squeezing a man's hands so hard they crumple, slapping a man in the back of the head so hard his eyeball flies out, punching the top of a man's head off, punch a man on the side of the head so hard that the force causes the other side of his head to explode, and fighting against a man who suddenly transforms into an ugly "Hulk" like creature and killing him by grinding him into hamburger meat. Let's not forget the famous head smash scene and the "gut" choke scene as well.+)The core story is well written+)Fan is great as Ricky~The English dub is very bad and the effects are cheap

This movie just didn't do it for me. I'm a fan of martial arts movies and loved Kung Fu Hustle and gore flicks like Bad Taste and Braindead and uberviolent fare like Ichi the Killer and The Raid 2. They at least had something akin to a plot and an attempt at character development that engaged the viewer and made you feel something towards the characters being beaten up, mangled, minced etc.With this movie, it just felt like something thrown together over the weekend whilst the scriptwriters were on holiday. Sure there were buckets of blood (although not that often) and a couple of shocking moments (sometimes laughably so) but overall this film was an utter mess from start to finish.

This movie is simply super sadistic, super gore, super bloody yet super funny and even somewhat moralistic story. It's simply "a ride", brutal, sadistic, cruel, nationalistic, anti-drug, anti-capitalistic...Oh yes - and it has hero that makes Rambo look as a old man on retirement and X-Men as a bunch of elderly people feeding birds in the park. I have read some opinions that Western super heroes do suck somewhat. After seeing The Machine Girl and this movie I just have to agree that all these spider-bitten transsexuals so easily paralyzed with Kryptonite or whatever are derivative, pathetic and boring. All the super villains are weak and laughable as well, we have more nasty super villains in European Parliament.But in this movie - well, the villains are really different league and the fights and "punishments" from villains are so brutal in the beginning that you just wonder how they could possibly escalate towards the end. They COULD escalate and basically this is way rougher than Russian military movie. The most bizarre thing is that movie keeps its political contents and yet somewhat manages so be in a very bizarre way funny and laughable as well.There is somewhat seriously wrong and twisted in minds of Asian people for sure. I have never seen something so cruel, bizarre yet funny in Western cinema. Most recommended for those who can swallow such twisted fun!