Tagline: It’s Evil Dead 2, Braindead, and The Matrix, times ten, turned up to 11!
Curiosity: Patch.com editor Sam Fran Scavuzzo loves this movie. That dude is dark. Also, one of the fights was a staple on The Daily Show during the increasingly distant Craig Kilborn period.
Plot: Set in the distant future (2001), Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky tells the story of some guy named Ricky (Siu-Wong Fan) who is 1) awesome at kung-fu and 2) in prison for reasons no one understands. But as Ricky begins taking out crime lords one by one, it becomes clear why he’s really here: To kung-fu kick the opium market right in the nards.
Thoughts: There’s something about Riki-Oh that is so absurdly, graphically violent that it becomes hilarious. Horror movies have suffering through a terrible torture porn period, in which movies that lack substance glorify debasing the human form. None of those flicks, like the Saw franchise for example, matches Riki-Oh’s level of gore. The guy just wrecks people:
At just shy of 90 minutes in length, Story of Ricky manages to move along at a brisk pace. The fight scenes aren’t too great on a technical level and the storytelling is ho-hum, but the special effects, cheap as they appear at times, are hi-larious. It’s a little more straight faced than, say, Kung Fu Hustle, but it’s still an entertaining comedy as much as it is an action/martial arts flick.
Reflection: My fiancée and I had a cultural exchange this weekend featuring Tree of Life and Story of Ricky. I like my movie better.
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