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Riki-Oh:
The Story of Ricky
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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7
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10
= Highest Rating
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Ricky
Ho*
is one tough
mutha.
Actually, indestructible
is more like it. By means of a mysterious kung
fu discipline taught to him by his uncle (You
Only Live Twice's Tetsuro Tamba), young
Ricky not only possesses superhuman strength but
also the power to regenerate any wound. This mutant-like
ability really comes in handy when Ricky is thrown
in prison for killing the drug pusher responsible
for his girlfriend's death. Once incarcerated,
he must fight for his life and those of his fellow
inmates against the sadistic, inhuman warden and
his ruthless enforcers.
The bad guys do their damndest
to give our hero a hard time. As punishment he
has powdered glass thrown in his eyes, is encased
in cement, gets buried alive and is forced to
eat razor blades. Just about every prisoner Ricky
befriends is brutally killed. (The simple-minded
mute Alan, for example, is horribly skinned alive.
You'd think after that the others would avoid
Ricky like the plague.) His biggest troubles come
from the Gang of Four, vicious inmates appointed
by the warden to keep order among the prison's
population.
Hulking, tattooed Oscar controls the North Wing.
The South Wing is run by the needle-throwing Brandon,
a Gilbert Gottfried look-alike with a Skunk Boy
streak. Giant Tarzan, who likes to crush people's
heads, lords over the East Wing. Cruel, effeminate
Rogan (actually played by a woman in the film)
rules the West. Quick to kill anyone who defies
or displeases them, these "bosses" do
the warden's bidding — including
growing opium poppies in the prison's greenhouse
— for status and perks.
Almost as soon as he arrives
in North Wing Ricky runs afoul of Oscar's underlings,
killing the massive, lumbering Zorro by literally
punching a hole through the brute's stomach. This
leads to a showdown with Oscar, who's been tasked
by hook-handed Assistant Warden Dan to eliminate
Ricky. When Oscar slices open his arm with a knife,
Ricky calmly ties the severed tendons back together
(with his teeth!) and resumes the fight. Realizing
he can't win, Oscar cuts open his own belly, pulls
out his intestines and tries to strangle Ricky
with them! (You gotta hand it to the man... He
had guts.)
With
Oscar dead, the "Gang of Three" are
ordered to finish Ricky once and for all. For
some reason —
despite numerous demonstrations — the movie's
villains just don't get it: Ricky can't be
killed.
They can, however, despite their fearsome
fighting skills. And Ricky proceeds to do just
that. It all culminates in a prison riot and a
final showdown with the evil warden, who has a
little kung fu secret of his own...
At times beyond outrageous,
Riki-Oh:
The Story of Ricky
is one of the wildest martial arts flicks I've
ever seen, certainly the goriest. In fact, there's
a lot less kung fu combat than one would expect
— the main
attraction seems to be its completely over the
top gore effects, which are
for the most part pretty cheesy and unconvincing.
The dubbed dialog,
performed by all of three people it seems, is
amusingly ludicrous. ("Stool" pigeon
Fink has a humorous bathroom scene in which he
sings bits of the
Stone's "Satisfaction" after unsuccessfully
trying to take a dump.) This movie is loaded with
gonzo characters and situations... It's as if
they made a gory Chinese martial arts version
of the campy '60s Batman TV show set in
the universe of a video fighting game.
Based on a popular Japanese
manga character, the film very successfully captures
the look and feel of a comic book. Ricky is, after
all, a superhero; the colorful villains all larger
than life. (Note: Story
of Ricky is now also available on Region
1 DVD from Media Blasters. The disc features a
letterboxed transfer and three selectable audio
tracks: English, Cantonese,
and Mandarin.) 4/14/01
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*
The
video sleeve reads "Riki-Oh" but the
character is called "Ricky Ho" in the
dubbed English language version.
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