Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991)

Genres - Action, Adventure, Science Fiction, Comedy, Crime, Thriller  |   Sub-Genres - Prison Film  |   Run Time - 91 min.  |   Countries - Hong Kong  |   MPAA Rating - NR
  • AllMovie Rating
    7
  • User Ratings (0)
  • Your Rating

Share on

Synopsis by Robert Firsching

In the year 2001, many government institutions have become privatized commercial ventures, like the men's prison where young Riki-Oh (Sui-Wong Fan) is sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter and assault. The ruthless gangsters who control the prison break an old man's face open in the prison lavatory as the film begins. The nearly superhuman Ricky trips one of the guards so his face is impaled on a spiked board in retaliation, and vows to avenge the old man when he hangs himself in despair. When the guards send the huge, Sumo-like Zorro after him in the prison shower, Ricky bloodily disembowels the man with his bare hands and apparently breaks another man in half with a single punch. Ricky is taken to the assistant warden, who has a metal hook-hand and a glass eye (he keeps mints in the socket). He impales Ricky's hand with his hook and beats him, but is quickly reduced to quaking fear by Ricky's incredible abilities. In an outrageous fight scene, a gangster named Oscar cuts Ricky's arm open with a knife and throws ground glass in his eyes, but Ricky ties his own veins together and knocks Oscar's eyeball out with a sharp cuff to the back of the head. Oscar then commits hara-kiri and tries to strangle Ricky with his own intestines before dying. There's a head broken like a vase, a saw-toothed machete to the face, people skinned alive, and the main plot -- Ricky fighting the evil opium-growing crooks running the prison -- gets somewhat lost in the flood of gore and guts, but it doesn't matter a bit.

Characteristics

Keywords

prison, fighting, violence, corruption, ruthlessness, warden