Review of Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

I don't know what was going through the minds of this movie's writers and director, I've seen this several times now and I can't make up my mind as to whether this movie was really intended to be so funny or not. There's an obvious undercurrent of tongue-in-cheek'ness to it, however at other times I get the impression that these guys really thought that having a man do things, like repair the severed tendons in his arm by tying them in a knot like a shoe lace with his teeth, was genius. Based upon the comic book of the same title, the story centers around a man in the not too distant future named Ricky OH, who's unusual Kung-Fu training has made him almost indestructible, nearly impervious to pain and given him superhuman strength. After killing the drug dealer responsible for his girlfriend's death, Ricky is sentenced to a brutal prison ruled by a sadistic warden, his one-eyed, claw-armed assistant and four equally twisted prisoners who run each of the prison's cellblocks. Ricky immediately takes it upon himself to defend his fellow prisoners from them, and with his incredible strength he rips and smashes his way to victory! People get disemboweled, holes punched through them, heads crushed, faces chopped with machetes, noses gouged with wood planers, arms fed in to meat grinders, and just about every other conceivable form of physical mayhem. A very high tolerance for gore is required if you're going to make it through this with a full stomach, it literally rivals `The Evil Dead' and `Dead Alive' for its bold, in-your-face carnage. Also to watch this movie while taking it seriously is to truly risk one's sanity, but if you just put your brain in neutral and except this movie on it's own level some will find it a lot of fun, personally I've got to admit it's a guilty pleasure. 6, perhaps almost a of 7 out of 10, a lot of people will think this movie is just plain trash, and perhaps in a way that's what it really is. But if nothing else it's bold, funny if although unintentionally, hyper-kinetic, and has some pretty good gore FX, so if you like bloody tongue-in-cheek nonsense like `The Toxic Avenger' this one is sure to become a favorite.