Bullet Points: Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

There are some movies in every genre that need to be watched if you are a big fan. Riki-Oh is one of those movies for the action/martial arts genre. I’ve seen pictures, gifs, and short clips from it for years but am only now watching it and now I’m extremely disappointed in myself. Even more so than usual, I guess.

Synopsis: A young man with superhuman strength is incarcerated at a prison run by corrupt officials and seeks to use his martial arts to clean up the system.

• The year 2001: The prison system has been privatized and people are making loads of money jailing folks. It sounds kind of wild but I could definitely see it happening some day. Riki-Oh is the newest addition to the population at our prison setting for the film. We’ll find out later why he’s here but he wastes little time getting under the skin of the assistant warden and his crew.
• Introduction: It feels like only a few minutes into the movie when Riki-Oh lays waste to some bullies. They are beating up an old man in the shower when Ricky punches straight through the fat guy’s gut. It’s an insane representation of the power that Ricky has and only a small taste of what’s to come.

• First big test: The first big time dude that Ricky has to drop the hammer on is the head of the gang in control of his prison wing. The dude looks like a Yakuza guy and shows no fear towards Ricky. Even after his intestines are hanging out, he still wraps them around Ricky’s neck and attempts to strangle him. It’s an incredibly gruesome way to go but still not the worst that you’ll see.

• When I was young and knew everything: Siu-Wong Fan plays Riki-Oh in this film. He was only 18 when the movie was made but he clearly has put in the work to get in incredible shape. The film makes sure to tell us that Ricky was born with some abilities but he has also been training with a master to perfect his skills. It was the untimely death of his girlfriend and his subsequent reaction to her death that caused Ricky to end up in this prison. He’s still a good dude and all of the other inmates look up to the young man.

• I’m a bad guy. Duh: Ricky eventually crosses paths with the other lackey’s of the warden and finds himself trying to fight out of a room filling with concrete. Whatever you say about the tactics of the assistant warden (played by Fan’s real-life father), you have to admit that they’re pretty decent. Ricky has some pretty brutal fights with the bad guys and even ends up getting captured and buried alive for 7 days with nothing but a bamboo pole to breathe through. No big deal, ya know.
• Return of the Warden: The feces really hits the fan when the Warden shows back up and Ricky still isn’t ready to ‘play ball’. The table is set for one of the wildest and most gory finale’s in martial arts history. The Warden voluntarily lays off his meds, which keep him from turning into a hulking monster. Then he and Ricky have the kind of fight that you would normally see in an anime (which is fitting since this is based on a manga). I won’t give away too much but let’s just say that there is a meat grinder involved and it gets messy.

The Verdict: Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky is an outlandishly entertaining movie that absolutely should be watched by anyone who enjoys this sort of thing. It’s funny for most of it, whether it is going for that tone or not, and the practical use of buckets of blood and body parts makes the movie even more fun to watch. Siu-Wong Fan does an okay job as Ricky, who is essentially a one-note hero without much development. The movie isn’t really about development, though. It’s about gruesome fight scenes with lots of bone-crushing action. I personally thought it was lots of fun and didn’t care if those involved were playing it straight or not. Watch it and find out for yourselves!