Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky — Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky( UHD & Blu Ray)
From the early 1990s, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky stands as one of the most camp, OTT & extreme prison films of all time. The dystopian future-set picture features a muscley, ragged-haired, and seemingly unkillable martial arts master who has been sent to a corrupted private prison. The film is an eventful comic book and dark comedy-edged affair, full of eye-popping, guts-pulling, head-crushing, and limb-ripping violence. Here from 88 Films is a dual-format UHD & Blu-ray release of the picture. Taking in a brutally vibrant new 4k scan, three new commentary tracks, and a mix of new/ archive extras.
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky ( Lik Wong ) is a Hong Kong film from the year 1991. It was directed/ co-written by Ngai Choi Lam, who had eleven other features to his name. These move from gritty and violent crime thriller Men From The Gutter (1983), haunted house parody The Ghost Snatchers (1986), brutal rape revenge thriller Her Vengeance (1988), and wacky sci-fi ‘n’ horror mash-up The Cat (1991)- these last two have seen recent(ish) reissues on 88 Films.
The around hour-and-a-half film is OTT and violent from the off- within the first five or so minutes we get the nose/ front of a face gorily removed by a wood plane, and another man gets planted face-first onto a plank full of nails. And as we move on, the film goes from one brutal, bloody, and OTT encounter/ fight after another.
Playing our lead, Riki-Oh Saiga is Louis Fan ( Ip Man, Righting Wrongs), who has a great screen presence, both muscular intimidation and caring/ heroic. The surrounding cast is well-selected to create some great wacky foes for Ricky. These go from a large, buzz-cut, and clawed assistant warden who has a removed red eye with chewing mints inside. There are several h towering nemeses- one huge-bellied, another side burned/ goatee with a head-crush grip, and another bolding/ bushy eyebrowed/ snotty nosed. And a few more.
On the gore/ violence side of things, we go way over the top- stomachs are punched, ripped open, and guts are pulled out. Arm tendons are pulled out, then tied back together. Limbs are both ripped and snapped off, eyes are popped out, heads are brutally crushed, folks are skinned, and bodies are fed into meat grinders alive.
I can’t recall when/how I first saw Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, but I’ve always had a soft spot for it- as it's so fast-moving, eventful and over-the-top. The gore, fights and general comic book look have all been wonderfully realised.
The new 4k scan here looks wonderful, buoyant and vibrant-aside from a few slightly clunky effects, the gore still looks impressive and impactful. The balance between the score and the Cantonese dialogue is good. And we get nicely clear English subtitles.
On the extras side, we get three commentary tracks- all of which I believe are new. One is with marital art film expert Frank Djeng. One is with respected genre critics Kim Newman and Sean Hogan. And one is with Audi Sorlie and Chris Ling. I played the second of these- and as always with a Newman & Hogan track, we get a wonderful researched, observed, and entertaining affair. They begin by talking about when they first saw the film & its initial impact on them. They point out a moment of foreshadowing in the credits, and discuss other futuristic prison films. They talk about the picture's largely subdued art design of white & greys, with the blood reds. We find out lead Louis Fan was just eighteen when he started in the film, and his father played the character of the assistant warden. They discuss the gang of four in the film, and other bodies outside of the film that have used the term. Later on, they discuss the lack of worldbuilding in the picture. They point out different martial arts styles in the film, and moments of comedy.
The other new extra is an interview with lead Louis Fan ( 19.02). He goes from talking about how he got the role and acting alongside his father. He talks about how the picture was shot over nine months- during which he was training with sandbags, so you know where they were in filming due to the length of his hair & the size of his muscles. He discusses the use of two different types of blood in the picture- one edible, one not. He talks about real-life injuries he got on set, and whether he’d play the role in a sequel. A well worth playing interview.
On the archive, we get another interview with Louis Fan, a Hong Kong trailer, and an English trailer. The finished release features a reversible sleeve featuring new art by Chris Barnes and original Hong Kong artwork.
It certainly is wonderful to see this gory ‘n’ OTT prison film getting this new release from 88 Films- with its classily brutal 4k scan, commentary tracks, and worthy mix of new/ archive extras.