The near future, and the world has seen increasing privatisation of public services. In 2001 a new act was passed where private companies took over the running of prisons as the criminal population soared. A van containing a batch of new prisoners heads towards one of these prisons. This one is a particularly nasty example of the new system, where the inmates are truly running the asylum. The prison is split into four wings, each wing has its own leader, each more deadly than the last and known collectively as The Gang of Four. They control their wings with the blessing of the heads of the prison, who are just as twisted and cruel as the convicts they preside over. One of the new prisoners is Ricky (Fan Siu-Wong) who was convicted of murder, and sets off the prison's metal detector thanks to the bullets he carries in his body that he keeps as ‘souvenirs'. Its obvious that Ricky isn't like the others, he shows no fear for the power wielded by The Gang of Four, or any other man in the prison. Samuel of the North Wing isn't one of the gang but is influential. He victimises another older inmate, he ruins the man's face with a wood plane, but as he leaves he is tripped up by Ricky, falling onto a piece of wood with nails sticking out of it! Bad luck! He runs from the room with the board and his hand nailed to his face, but strikes back by having his the old man's upcoming parole overturned. Ricky is greatly upset when later on he discovers that the man, who had been desperate to see his wife and son again, had killed himself rather than face any more time in prison.

Samuel then turns his attention to taking revenge upon Ricky using an enormous fat man, so huge and scary that he was in solitary confinement for eating the warden's horse (!). Though this elephant of a man seems formidable when he punches Ricky across the shower room, Ricky quickly dispatches him with a deadly disembowelling punch to his huge stomach, before turning to Samuel and killing him with another gory blow. This catches the attention of the North Wing's leader, Hai, who says he will make sure Ricky is punished according to the North Wing's rules once the assistant warden has done with him. That night in his cell, Ricky is attacked by pains in his chest, but uses meditation to ease his suffering and then we enter a flashback sequence! A young Ricky, looking as much like a goofy teenager as he possibly can, goes to a graveyard to pay his respects to an unspecified dead person. There he finds his Uncle Ghost, who he has not seen since he was a young boy. His uncle notes that even as a child he had super strength (sorry folks, that's the closest we'll get to an explanation) but is dismayed that goofy Ricky is still clumsy and cannot focus his power, despite having learnt martial arts. Ricky remembers that his uncle is a master of chi gung, the development of your inner strength and spirit, your chi, to make yourself more powerful. Uncle Ghost agrees to train him, which involves meditation, oh yeah, and smashing the crap out of a load of unfortunate peoples' grave stones. Now I'm not expert on Chinese beliefs about the dead, but I don't think dishonouring people's graves is such a good idea, in fact Ricky is lucky he wasn't attacked by hopping kung fu vampires. Man, that would have been SO awesome.

The head warden is on holiday in Hawaii and so the assistant warden (Fan Mui Sang, real life father of Fan Siu-Wong and star of numerous other movies including Magnificent Butcher) is in charge. He is a strange fat man, with a hook where his left hand should be and a false eye which he uses to store his supply of mints (!). According to official records, after doing badly in school Ricky disappeared for two years, before reappearing and being arrested and tried for murder. The assistant warden is extremely suspicious of him after seeing the amazing strength he showed against Samuel and his enormous friend, and wants to know what he was doing for those two years. Ricky has no answer for him, even when the warden shows him a letter that had arrived for him featuring a picture of a cute girl, and even when he uses his hookto stab Ricky's hand and pin him to a desk. Ricky destroys the desk, deflects a bullet with a metal tray in awesome slow-motion style and leaves. Ricky sits in his cell that night and has a goofy flashback to him and the girl in the picture playing with a remote control plane. The girl does look rather young, so its not clear what their relationship was, whether she was his girlfriend or sister or something else, but his ending up in prison could very well have something to do with her.

The excitement doesn't stop however, as the next day one of Samuel's former lackeys is being threatened by Keung, a grisled character who somehow has smuggled a huge serrated sword into the prison. This backfires on him though as the leader of the north wing and member of the Gang of Four, Hai, appears and angered by Keung not respecting his authority, takes the blade and buries it in the side of Keung's face. Ouch. Keung is used as bait to trick Ricky into a confrontation with Hai, who uses power to blind Ricky and slashes the muscles in his arm in an attempt to render our hero helpless. However Ricky washes the powder from his eyes and ties the tendons in his arm back together (!!), proving why some in the prison call him a demon. Hai has no alternative but to use his ultimate form of attack, hacking open his own stomach and trying to use his intestines to choke our hero! Really! This doesn't work however, as Ricky launches him into the air and smashes his face in with an almighty punch (complete with bone-crunching x-ray view), as if ripping out his own intestines wasn't enough to kill him. Sensing the tide of power shifting, the prisoners of the north wing attempt to rebel, only to be put in their place by the other members of the Gang of Four – the enormous Tarzan, the diminutive White God who has power of amazing weapons that look oddly like knitting needles, and the effeminate Wong Chun (actually played by Japanese actress Yukari Oshima). Hai was the weakest of the Gang of Four, can Ricky possibly stand up to the combined power of the remaining trio? What dark secrets does this prison, and its warden, hold that could be threatened by Ricky's presence? Also, what awful thing happened for him to end up in prison in the first place?

So, worthless cheap trash, or a greatly entertaining classic full of cheesy fun? This, my friends, is what I can truly call a Great Bad Movie. It has all the hallmarks of a cult classic, an extremely silly bunch of characters, a whole load of ridiculous and cheap gore effects, acting that wouldn't be acceptable in the worst soap opera, and an utterly po-faced and serious delivery without a hint of irony or self-consciousness. While some other films like Lloyd Kaufman's Troma output, are cheap and gory fun, there's always this knowing “look, we're making a bad movie!” feel to the performances and writing. Story of Ricky (AKA Riki Oh) however is played so seriously, so full it is with bad prison drama clichés and bucket loads of cheesy and unconvincing gore, it's a b-movie fan's dream come true. People are stabbed, hacked up, ground into paste, blown up, skinned, squashed, and have their heads smashed to pieces. The amount of gore is mind blowing and had it been far more realistic this film might have been far more unpleasant and mean spirited, but such is the unrealistic cheapness of the whole thing that its just funny, and an absolute riot of wacky, bloody excess. Based on a manga called ‘Riki Oh', this film went down well with fans of the source material, apparently capturing the feel and extreme gore of the comic very well. Its easy to see the translation of the cartoonish and over the top drama and violence from page to screen, this could be the closest that a live action feature has come to its printed and animated cousins.

Fan Siu-Wong is fabulous as Ricky – a former Wushu performer turned actor, and while he is never going to win awards for his acting, his exaggerated and often near-psychotic facial expressions fit the ridiculous nature of the film perfectly, plus he has the physical presence and ability to portray the incredible power of his character. Having appeared in numerous Chinese TV shows and having a modest filmography that includes Corey Yuen's Righting Wrongs with Yuen Biao and Cynthia Rothrock, a meaty action role in Stone Age Warriors and an appearance along-side Michelle Yeoh and Rongguang Yu (Iron Monkey) in Project S (AKA Super Cop 2), he admits that he has never shed the image of Ricky, and that it is still the film he is most recognised for starring in. With good reason too, and though this film might have given him a touch more notoriety than he would have liked (in fact some have blamed this film on his career never truly taking off) he has found a place in the heart of many a b-movie fan with his memorable portrayal of Ricky, and surely that's more important than some silly mainstream success right? Right? Special attention must also go to the senior Fan, Fan Mui Sang, who plays the evil assistant warden to the hint. He goes full tilt on his evil character, aided by the novel look he's been given – the two-pronged hook that he can use to manipulate objects, and drag unfortunate inmates around by their mouth. His red fake eye is a touch of genius too with its second use as a container for his mints, I mean come on, what sort of twisted mind comes up with insane touches like that? I love it! The extensive porn collection in his office is another amusing touch.

The rest of the cast vary from to utterly dreadful, the cast of extras are one of the most uninspired and confused bunch I've ever seen. They were seemingly given little or no direction, as in every crowd scene it looks like they were all told to do the exact same thing – either to wave their arms in the air triumphantly or to point at whatever is happening in front of them, over and over and over. The villainous characters all grimace and look mean when required, the actor who played White God (sorry buddy, I couldn't find your name anywhere) does a particularly good job considering that he has one of the most ludicrous haircuts I've ever seen on a villain AND his main offensive weapon is a pair of knitting needles on pieces of elastic. The most outstanding of the four, and the one given the most lines too, was definitely Yukari Oshima who undoubtedly had the most acting skill out of the lot, her performance full of confident swagger combined with good expressions and breaking out some cool martial arts moves to boot, though what do you expect from an 8th dan black belt in Karate?. She does the Brigitte Lin-ish androgynous character well too, though like the good Dr. Freex said there's no hiding those lovely curves of hers, and she's still a cutey pie even with that bowl haircut.

As you might have guessed, this is a film I truly have a lot of affection for, from the enjoyable cast to the bad clichés, the cheap n' crazy gore and everything in between. This is going to be a film that a lot of people are going to watch and not ‘get' and I wouldn't suggest this film is for everybody. Those seeking good stories, strong acting or realistic fighting techniques are going to be sorely disappointed and won't see what all the fuss is about. However us b-fans know a good thing when we see it, and Story of Ricky will surely go down as one of the great b-classics of our time. Though the shock value is largely gone after the first viewing, but there are many cheesy touches to look out for (like Siu-Wong trying not to smile while sharing the screen with his dad, or the way Ricky's hair length varies considerably during the course of the picture) and one may relive that first time viewing by inflicting it on unsuspecting friends and relatives, and creating new Ricky converts will keep many a dedicated b-fan happy for a long time to come. Like I said, this truly is a Great Bad Movie.

In the year 2001, prisons have now become a business that are ruled over by corrupt wardens and their henchmen. However, from one such prison emerges Ricky - a wrongly convicted inmate who is extremely adept at fighting and very hacked off. When the tough guys on his cell block start causing trouble, it doesn't take Ricky long to take justice into his own hands and he begins dishing out punishment with his fists. As his activities begin to draw the attention of the people in charge, Ricky soon becomes top of quite a few hit lists and he is bombarded by numerous assassins. Will Ricky's unique approach help him bring down the crooked management or will he find himself on the fast track to death row?

Based on a popular manga comic strip, it's probably fair to say that 'Story Of Ricky' emerges as an adaptation that is centred around extravagant visuals rather than a decent storyline. Perhaps this is an easy trap to fall into when it comes to converting a comic book to the big screen as they often concentrate more on artwork than scripting but when done properly, it is still possible to come up with a strong concept (as we've seen with recent Hollywood successes such as 'Blade' or 'Spiderman'). However, 'Story Of Ricky' sets itself up for a fall instantly with an extremely simple "corrupt prison" plot that holds no depth or originality and leaves the viewer (particularly those of us unfamiliar with the source) completely devoid of emotional attachment to the characters. It must be said though that this is through no fault of the actors who are adequate and do their best to incorporate the interesting traits into their characters, but when they have so little to work with it is difficult to produce a noteworthy performance.

In a film that is so dependent on it's action sequences, its a disappointment that 'Story Of Ricky' fails to capatilise on it's many opportunities. Rather than utilise the obvious talent of it's star Fan Siu Wong (made all the more apparent by his demo in the HKL DVD), the film opts to make the fights very basic with an over-reliance on gore rather than Martial Arts ability. Obviously, this method is in keeping with the typical manga style and on the printed page it is quite captivating, but here it only leaves the fight fan frustrated by the lack of actual content. However, if it is low budget eye gouging, head crushing and limb ripping that you crave, then there is still a saving grace to 'Story Of Ricky'. Much like Romero's classic 'Dawn Of The Dead', the effects on display here are created using simple materials but are extremely effective and cause the viewer to cringe on queue.

Perhaps at one time, 'Story Of Ricky' was a curio for fans that was highly sought after due to it's censorship but now it just seems like an empty vessel that is an excuse to experiment with grotesque make-up. Definitely one for fans of shallow horror movies or late night post-pub viewing rather than reference material for the industry.

Ricky is a guy whose girlfriend is dead because of some heroin dealers, so he found the head honcho and punched a big hole in his head. This landed him in jail, where corporate corruption and over-the-top sadism have nullified any sense of law and order. Ricky fights back against the bullies, and a bunch of no-name inmates who can't act worth shit make him their hero.

Normally, one doesn't expect breakthrough performances from extras with one line apiece, but these guys take the bad acting cake and the Michael Wong-shaped candle on top of it. Every time they're gathered together to look at something, they all wave their hands around like they're trying to get peoples' attention, point to whatever they're looking at, and shoo mosquitoes away all at the same time. Point, murmur, wave, turn head, point, wave, repeat. It's like they're all saying: "Look. Right there. You see that? Look. Look where I'm pointing to. No, over there. Right in front of you. There. Look at that. Right there. Right where I'm pointing. Look at it. Look. Right there. You look, I'll point. See it? Right there. Right there in front of you. I'm pointing at it right now. Right now. It's there in front of you. Right there. Look at it. Look. Right there." If you think I'm exaggerating, just watch the damn movie and keep your eyes on the prisoners. You'll laugh your ass off at how much they just stand there and point and wave their hands around. Who hired these idiots? Of course, this is probably more the director's fault, but what the hell, it's easier to make fun of the ones you can actually see.

Anyway, things get worse when the prison warden returns from a vacation in Hawaii with his fat spoiled jackass of a son in tow, and Ricky finds himself fighting harder than ever before for his life, his freedom, and his hand-waving admirers. This brings me to the other thing about this movie that annoyed the living hell out of me. There are plenty of sadistic motherfuckers in this movie, and you can't wait to watch Ricky butcher them one by one, but this kid is the worst of all. He wears only the dorkiest clothes, constantly stuffs his face with food, prances around like a faggot, and claps his hands and squeals with glee when people get maimed or tortured by Daddy or one of Daddy's henchmen. Probably what Harvey Weinstein was like as a kid. From the moment he first appears, you fantasize about Ricky tearing his head off and then shoving it up his ass, or something equally crowd-pleasing. Oh, how sweet it will be to watch him die slowly and painfully at Ricky's hands, you think. And guess what? IT. DOESN'T. HAPPEN. Every other bad guy dies some horrible death or other, BUT THIS FAT FUCK SURVIVES THE MOVIE!!! GRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Aside from THAT little turd, there's only one other character that I would refer to as "notable": the androgynous Huang Chan, played by Yukari Oshima, a woman, with a man's haircut and a man's voice (though not a very...uh, manly one). SHE is the only character who really gets to show HIS (?) fighting talents; Ricky's fight scenes, such as they are, mostly consist of him shoving his fists through peoples' bodies and stuff like that. This is a real letdown because Shaw Brothers/Venoms veteran Philip Kwok (aka Kuo Chui) handled the choreography; his talents were put to much better use in the sensational Brotherhood of the Wolf.

The outrageous violence is good for a few laughs, but it's hard to take a lot of this shit seriously, and that seems to be pretty much what the film expects you to do. I mean, you can't have a guy bursting out of his clothing like one of those space aliens in "Bad Taste" and not have people laugh. This isn't something I would recommend to the casual viewer, but I'm sure you could come up with a good drinking game for it; chug a beer each time you see an empty eye socket, every time Ricky recovers from some horrible injury in a few seconds, and so on.

Before I get away from myself, let me set up the plot. Ricky Ho (Fan) learns a form of unstoppable kung fu from his uncle that uses the other person's force for strength. This means little Ricky can literally punch through anyone in his way. He puts his kung fu to use on a drug pusher responsible for killing his girlfriend and ends up in prison, where -- like many other prison movies -- the gangsters run the place. This time they're led by a team known as "The Gang of Four," who each have their own special powers, like being able to crush people's heads like peanut shells or shoot razor-sharp needles from their hands. Ricky doesn't want to fight, but is pushed in a confrontation with the assistant warden (a big fat guy with a hook for a hand and who stores breath mints in his eye socket -- yes, I'm serious -- in his eye socket) after "fat boy" threatens Ricky's family. The Gang of Four, like a pack of dogs, is unleashed on Ricky, who reluctantly fights one (during which he ties his severed tendons back together with his own teeth!). The rest of the prisoners want Ricky to kill the rest, but he doesn't -- until he finds poppy leaves. Remembering his dead girlfriend, Ricky goes out for revenge. I won't spoil the rest for you, but the finale involves the warden and a meat grinder. A very large meat grinder.

There's really a lot going against Story of Ricky. The plot is tired and full of cliches, the actors are all pretty bad, the set designs are cheap, the movie is shot very poorly and the kung fu just isn't that good. But I had a great time watching it. Story of Ricky is indeed the goriest martial arts film, at least that I've seen. It makes Sonny Chiba's classic The Streetfighter look anemic by comparison -- and let's not forget that The Streetfighter featured a man's scrotum being ripped off! It isn't just the volume of blood that makes Story of Ricky stand out; it's the creativity for which it is used. There are just simply so many crazy things in the movie (such as a man using his own intestines to try and strangle Ricky), it's quite exhilirating in a sick, demented sort of way. Combined with the bad production values and lousy script, it's quite funny as well, in that "so bad that it's good" kind of way.

It's not a great movie by any means, but if you want to see just how far HK movies will go, check out Story of Ricky. You'll have a bloody great time.

In prison Ricky refuses to take the abuse dished out on a regular basis by the governor's cronies, known as the 'Gang of Four'. These are four inmates who keep the other prisoners in check through the threat of extreme violence, they are also involved with the governor's secret side operation of growing opium. The Governor attempts to make an example out of Ricky leading to numerous opportunities for bloodletting. In addition to Ricky's Herculean strength he is also a master of breath control giving him the ability to withstand excruciating pain. This makes him superhuman and ultimately more than a match for his enemies.

I couldn't really recommend this film for it's plot, acting, cinematography or fight choreography. In all of these areas the film is rather undeveloped and unchallenging yet this still is really one of those must see movies if for no other reason than as an example of how extreme Hong Kong cinema can be. No opportunity for the most gruesome gore is wasted with such scenes as a 'Gang of Four' leader using his own intestines to strangle Ricky, a man getting half of his face removed by Yukari Oshima, Ricky chopping the top of an attackers head off with a single blow and an unfortunate inmate losing his arm in a meat grinder. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

While it is unlikely that 'Story of Ricky' will ever get an uncut release in the UK, if it ever gets a release at all, it still isn't that shocking. This is mainly due to the cheap special effects resulting in a lot of the gore looking less than real and at times actually quite laughable. Still this is quite unlike anything else I've ever seen.