Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

Title: Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
Director: Ngai Kai Lam
Cast: Siu-Wong Fan, Mei Sheng Fan, Ka-Kui Ho
Year: 1991
MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and gore, and for some drug content.
Date of Review: February 24, 2007

It can be said that there are two different categories of “guilty pleasures”: the first category is the type of movie that is critically panned and generally considered a mediocre movie, but you just have fun with it. The second category is a movie that is poorly written, acted and directed, the effects are hoaky and poorly executed, and the entire movie is so laughably bad that it transcends its own negativity to become something that’s unintentionally brilliant. Riki-Oh fits snugly into the second category, providing more laughs and unintentional hilarity than most comedies intend to provide, and has some of the most outrageous gore ever committed to celluloid. Translation: it’s a great movie.

The story in Riki-Oh is pretty much non-existent. Riki is a prisoner in the future where prisons are run by corporations who exploit the prisoners as free laborers. Some back story is thrown in through random flashbacks involving Riki avenging the death of his girlfriend (or is that his sister?), using the most lethal of martial arts techniques: breath control. Apparently if you have control of your breath, you can stop heart attacks, break through walls of reinforced steel, and have strikes so powerful that you can actually punch through people. It’s quite a feat, to be sure, but the training sequences are what really convince the audience this could be real. Riki trains with his uncle in a graveyard, where they demolish all of the tombstones – you would think something like this would be frowned upon, but when you’re this badass you know no one is going to bother you about it.

One of the best parts of Riki-Oh is its complete sincerity in what it’s doing. Siu-Wong Fan – who plays the titular character – has this look of complete seriousness throughout, as if he is trying to win some awards with an incredibly heartfelt performance in a sure-fire masterpiece of filmmaking. When profusely angered, he puts turns his face towards the sky and screams at the powers-that-be, before engaging in some of the most spectacular air-fu* ever created by mortal men. Surely if a certain invisible character from a novel by H.G. Wells were anywhere in the vicinity, he would have his ass handed to him.

*air-fu (verb); kung fu against an invisible opponent – derives from “air guitar”.

It’s impossible to discuss Riki-Oh without comparing it to another hoaky, low-budget gorefest which is equally brilliant – Peter Jackson’s first feature length film, Bad Taste. Both films make extensive use of homemade prosthetics and make-up effects, and both films use quick cuts between real actors and prosthetics or costumes to try and blend the real and fake elements together. All this really does is magnify how ridiculous the effects really are, and successfully makes both movies even more fun. Both films also feature a final confrontation with a monster that is so utterly ridiculous that it makes you wonder if the filmmakers were trying to create something completely outlandish, or if they were just completely insane. In the case of Riki-Oh, it may very well have been more of the latter.

Where Riki-Oh gets its charm is in its pure sense of fun. How one could not have a great time watching this movie just doesn’t make any sense. The gore is so over the top and out there that it couldn’t even be considered disturbing or offensive, and the movie just makes so little sense and takes itself so seriously in doing so that it’s an absolute joy. It actually brings back memories of another film I recently reviewed called Duel to the Death, in which any plot or believability is completely abandoned for the sake of pure, unabashed fun. Whether this is what was actually intended by the filmmakers is beside the point, because that’s what it is.

How one can not love a movie in which people actually get kicked in half just doesn’t make any sense. Nor does every minute you go without seeing this movie – it’s delightful.

7 / 10