Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky



In 1992, the same year that Tsui Hark made Once Upon a Time in China, a film that re-defined Martial Arts cinema as a dignified and genuinely artistic medium that can portrayed Kung Fu as a metaphor for Chinese cultural pride, along came Lam Ngai-Kai, an obscure Grindhouse director. With the rights to a Manga called Riki Oh in one hand and a shoestring budget in the other, he set out to make the most faithful live action adaptation of a manga ever. 9 disastrous over budgeted months later, Riki-Oh: The Story Of Ricky was born.

Ricky (or Lik Wong in the original Cantonese version) was your typical red-blooded college kid with the strength of twenty men and ass-kicking kung fu, who like nothing more than to frolic with his innocent girlfriend Anne (or Yin Yin) and play the flute all day long. That is until his uncle came and taught him Qi-Gong, a technique which hardens his body to damage by throwing grave markers at him. Unfortunately, his uncle forgot his own preachings of "Chi-Gong requires you to control your temper" when he taught Ricky the forbidden technique.

Anne is almost raped by a drug dealer and runs off a roof to escape. Ricky instantaneously loses his cool and then proceeds to literally destroy the drug dealer with his stone-shattering strength.

Our story starts when he is sent to a privatized prison. Since they run themselves with no government interference, the wardens are allowed to be as sadistic as they like to the innocent inmates through "trustworthy" inmates, who enforce the rules.

After witnessing a helpless old man getting his nose shaved off by Samuel (aka Wild Cat), Ricky decides to trip the bastard over and have a dummy that does not even look remotely like him nail his hand to his face on a conveniently present board-with-nails. The next day, Samuel hires a literal horse-eating fat assassin called Zorro (or Silly Long) to get Ricky in the showers.

After that, All Hell Breaks Loose.

Expect every other prisoner, warden and guard to gets popped like a balloon with one punch by our hero.

An unintentional classic of comedy cinema, which proceeded to destroy the director's career, doom the leading actor to B-movie mediocrity until his role as a villain in Ip Man, and be picked up by an American distributor to be given the most lovably hilarious dub to a Hong Kong movie ever.

"Zorro: "Ricky! Someone paid me thirty pounds of rice to finish you off and turn you into mince meat and put you in a pie.""
 * Adaptation-Induced Plothole: Among other things, why didn't Riki escape the prison until the end when he could have just punched a hole in the wall? In the manga he could have escaped any time and only stayed to find information on his brother from the warden, but the movie never mentions this.
 * Ambiguously Gay: Rogan.
 * Big Word Shout: BAAAASSSS-TAAAARD!!!!
 * Berserk Button: Ricky becomes enraged when he finds out dead prisoners are buried with their handcuffs on, and that opium is being grown in the prison. The fact that Oscar and Tarzan are used and discarded by the Warden despite having relatives who depend on them pisses him off even more.
 * Big Bad: The Warden.
 * Bishonen: Rogan, who is actually played by a woman in drag.
 * Blood Knight: Tarzan, who saves Ricky from Rogan because he doesn't want him dead before they have a chance to fight.
 * Bloody Hilarious
 * Booby Trap: For whatever reason, some of the prison cells seem to be equipped with these. One fills up with cement, and another has a crushing ceiling.
 * Captivity Harmonica: Our titular character is typically seen blowing on a folded leaf in this manner and pulling it off fairly well.
 * Charles Atlas Superpower: Ricky is pretty strong. Like punching through concrete strong.
 * Crapsack World: Though it's a colorful and clean setting, the prison is a horrible place.
 * Crows and Ravens: When Oscar's eye is slapped out of his head, a few crows dive to his eyeball to eat it.
 * Dogged Nice Guy: Ricky was sweet enough to try and save the life of a guy who tried to kill him twice.
 * Dude Looks Like a Lady: Rogan. Probably because he's played by one.
 * Expy: Ricky of Kenshiro.
 * Eye Scream:
 * A few prisoners, including the one who was punished by the Warden.
 * The Assistant Warden looses both his eyes in separate incidents.
 * Fat Bastard: Zorro, a fat drooling slob who is hired by Samuel to kill Ricky.

"Assistant Warden: Alright!! You got a lot of guts, Oscar!!"
 * Four Is Death: The Gang of Four.
 * Gorn: The movie was clearly intended to be gorntastic, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) it runs afoul of its own terrible special effects and acting so the effect is lost completely.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Ricky Oh is later seen as Jin Shanzhao.
 * Improbable Weapon User: The prisoners seem to acquire bizarre weapons with the greatest of ease -- Brandon uses knitting needles on strings, Tarzan shows up in one scene with a giant two-pronged pitchfork, and ill-fated minor character Andrew is about to chop the Fink's head in half with a giant saw blade when Oscar turns the tables on him.
 * Jabba Table Manners: The overweight Assistant Warden and the Warden wolf down banquets while their prisoners starve on rice rations and mysterious meat made in the prison's kitchen. Heck, even their dogs get steak for dinner!
 * Kick the Dog: The Warden and the Assistant Warden rarely do anything else. The Gang of Four do their share of dog-kicking as well, even Oscar and Tarzan, who aren't all that bad compared to Rogan and Brandon, who skin Oscar's poor mute godson Alan alive when he refuses to kill Ricky. Rogan even literally kicks a dog...IN HALF.
 * Made of Iron: Qi-Gong allows Ricky to shrug off fatal injuries and regenerate damage like Wile E Coyote. In one scene, Oscar slashes Ricky's arm open -- so Ricky ties the tendons in his arm back together and the arm is good as new.
 * Made of Plasticine: Most people get killed in especially spectacular ways.
 * One-Winged Angel: For no established reason, the Warden turns into a giant ogre creature at the end.
 * Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Riki putting the Warden in a meat grinder. The actor playing Riki took three days to wash out the fake blood.
 * People in Rubber Suits: The Warden, post-transformation.
 * Pop Goes the Human: The Warden's "elephant gun" seems to do this to people, as the Assistant Warden and Brandon find out firsthand.
 * Rated "M" for Manly
 * Red Right Hand: The Assistant Warden's hook and glass eye.
 * Redemption Equals Death: Tarzan holds up the crushing ceiling long enough for Ricky to escape.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: As Ricky literally tears the prison apart after some of his buddies are killed.
 * Rule of Cool
 * Seppuku: Oscar cuts himself open and tries to strangle Ricky with his own intestines, to which the Assistant Warden encouragingly shouts in the dub:

"Assistant Warden: "Tarzan used to open coconuts this way. Ricky's head's going to explode now!""
 * Strong as They Need to Be: Riki can get rid of chains and handcuffs, hold a Descending Ceiling, tear a hole in the prison wall... yet a prison cell is able to hold him. Also, in one scene he removes a nail from his hand nonchalant, but is affected by a spiked weapon later.
 * Stupid Sexy Rogan: Justified by the fact that he's actually a real woman clearly playing a man.
 * The Speechless: Alan, on account of missing a tongue.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Anne, if only you did not run off the roof to escape your rapist, none of this pain and horror would have been necessary for Riki to endure.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: Back in 1992, when this film was released, 2001 was still so far away.
 * We Can Rule Together / Klingon Promotion: After Ricky kills Oscar, the Assistant Warden offers him the dead man's place in the Gang of Four.
 * Worthy Opponent:
 * Oscar has some degree of honor and a great respect for Ricky, and tries to keep order in his wing of the prison.
 * Tarzan also skirts this at times.
 * World of Ham
 * X Meets Y: The Shawshank Redemption meets Itchy And Scratchy.
 * Or if you prefer, Cool Hand Luke meets Hobo with a Shotgun
 * You Killed My Father: Averted. Oscar's godson - a quiet little guy - forgives Ricky for killing Oscar.
 * Your Head Asplode: Used to introduce the Gang of Four. Also hilarious.