The Story of Ricky (1991) Directed by: Ngai Kai Lam Approx. Running Time: 88 minutes Rating: Not Rated Listing on the A.K.A. Page: CLICK HERE A Second Opinion: Varied Celluloid Buy it on DVD at: Amazon.com or Movies Unlimited My Rating:

Based on a comic book of the same name, The Story of Ricky is a wildy violent and gory film that triumphs over it's obvious budget constraints. It has garnered quite a cult following over the years and for good reason. Fake blood and rubbery appendages (and internal organs) are used with reckless abandon as the film's hero brutally massacres all of his opponents. The movie takes place in the year 2001, in a world where prisons are privately owned and operated franchises. One such prison becomes the temporary home of Ricky Ho, a mysterious lad who was arrested and jailed for murder. (Said murder had earned Ricky five bullets in the chest, which he never had removed, because they're his souvenirs! Man, what a badass!)

It doesn't take long before Ricky begins to see that corruption runs rampant within the jail. Apparently if you rub one of the more prominant criminals the wrong way, your number is up, one way or another. This is illustrated to the extreme when Wildcat and his goons bully and beat Ma, and older prisoner who's parole is coming up soon. Seeing this cruel injustice, Ricky decides to do something and trips Wildcat who in turn falls face-first onto a board full of nails! Because of Ricky's good deed, Ma's parole is canceled (thanks to Wildcat) and the old man commits suicide late in the night. With Ma now dead, Wildcat sets his sights on Ricky. He pays off one of the prison guards to release Silly Lung into the population in order to kill Ricky.

Silly Lung is a rather obese and voracious fellow (who apparently was so hungry that he did eat a horse once... so they say...) and decides to challenge Ricky to battle in the jail's bathing area. Silly Lung sends Ricky crashing into a wall, but Ricky counters by punching a gaping hole in Silly Lung's stomach! As the wounded mountain of lard falls backwards, splashing blood and gore everywhere, Wildcat attacks Ricky with a large nail. Ricky blocks the attack and then calmly pulls the nail from his hand and punches a hole through Wildcat's torso! And this is just a small taste of what's to come! If you think this is violent, you haven't seen anything yet!

That evening, Ricky sits in his cell and has a series of flashbacks that sort of explain why he's strong enough to perforate people with his bare hands. You see, Ricky met his Uncle one day in a graveyard near school (Ricky was going to music school to learn how to play the flute at the time. Zamfir would be proud!). Ricky's uncle sees promise in the strapping young lad (who vaguely resembles Michael Jackson at times), and decides to teach him the breath control technique. To put Ricky's newly learned skill to the test, the old man starts lobbing gravestones at Ricky. Using his super-human strength and breath control, Ricky manages to shatter each stone slab, much to his uncle's enjoyment. Ok, just hold the phone here folks! Our hero and his relative just desecrated an entire graveyard for a kung-fu workout! Doesn't that seem wrong to anyone else? However, this does not explain why or how Ricky manages to heal all of his serious wounds overnight with absolutely no scarring.

Eventually morning comes and Ricky meets the Assistant Warden, who comes complete with a glass eye (filled with mints) and a mean left hook (literally). The Assistant Warden tries to get information on Ricky's mysterious background and dishes out a little physical punishment. Ricky retorts by giving the Assistant Warden a nosebleed without even hitting him! "What kind of demon are you" indeed! This little Q&A session kicks off Ricky's crusade to wipe out the film's bad guys. The first main battle takes place between Ricky and Hai. Hai mortally wounds one of Ricky's friends and uses him as bait in order to get Ricky to fight. Though Ricky is hesitant at first, he's soon locked in mortal combat with his tattooed foe. Hai fights dirty and throws powdered glass in Ricky's face (causing our hero's eyes to bleed) and then disables one of Ricky's arms with a large knife.

Miraculously, Ricky finds a water main and smashes it open, then washes the glass from his eyes. Then he reaches into his wounded arm and ties his tendons back together! And just when you thought that you have seen it all... Hai disembowls himself, rips out his own intestines, and tries to strangle Ricky with them! Seeing as how Hai isn't set on giving up until he's dead, Ricky obliges by smashing in Hai's skull with one devastating punch. (Said punch is shown in X-Ray Vision!) Afterwards, Ricky befriends Sha, the tongueless godson of the recently departed Hai. As Ricky tries teaching Sha how to play flute music using leaves, the mute lad gives Ricky some poppy leaves! It turns out that the Warden and his goons have been growing poppies in order to make opium. (GASP! The plot thickens!) And just to prove that it doesn't pay to be Ricky's friend, Huang Chuan skins the poor child alive!

Ricky now takes it upon himself to destroy the poppy fields which brings about the wrath of Huang Chuan, Shorty, and Taizan. Ricky fends off their most potent attacks (Huang Chuan's "death strike" in particular. Ricky overcomes this powerful technique by restarting his own heart with a few blows to the chest! Is there nothing he can't do?!) and escapes to fight another day. Unfortunately, Ricky manages to find the prison's cement room of death! (Ahm... why does the prison has a special room that fills with cement?) The quick-drying cement is enough to immobilize our hero until The Warden returns from his Hawaiian vacation with his ghastly son in tow. Ricky attempts to kill the Warden but is soon thwarted by Taizan. The two super strong fighters go at it, but in the end Ricky claims victory after demolishing Taizan's arms and jaw.

And just when you think Ricky's in the clear, the ceiling of the cell begins to slowly drop down. (It's a giant hydraulic press!!!) Ricky manages to stave off death and escape the cell with the aid of a slowly dying Taizan, only to be captured and buried alive for an entire week! The Warden intends on granting a pardon to Ricky if he can survive the ordeal and Ricky is soon buried alive in the main prison yard. This gives Ricky plenty of time to reflect on why he's in prison. Apparently he was arrested for murdering the opium dealer that killed his girlfriend, Ying. And it's sort of a harsh punishment considering that she trotted off the roof of a building on her own! Said opium dealer is also the same fellow that gave Ricky his "souvenirs." Ever since then, Ricky has been a champion of good against drug dealers, which explains why he destroyed the poppy supply in the prison.

After the flashback, Ricky is excavated from the ground (it was a fairly long flashback after all). Though it appears that he's dead (which by all rights he should be), he soon awakens and breaks his bonds. The inmates all cheer for Ricky and distract him long enough to be knocked out and tortured. After he's beaten with a wrench and force fed some razorblades, Ricky is chained up and locked in a cell. But once again, Ricky's abilities are underestimated and he manages to easily escape, kill the prison's resident fink, and capture the Assistant Warden. With Ricky in the lead, the prisoners begin an open revolt against the security guards. In the meantime, Ricky searches for the Warden.

Ricky uses the Assistant Warden as a shield and confronts the Warden in the prison's kitchen. Undeterred, the Warden pulls out his gun and shoots his assistant... causing his twisted second in command to explode! Now the film could've ended right here with the Warden blasting Ricky with his special gun, but instead he tosses it aside because Ricky "isn't afraid of bullets!" What?! Ricky isn't afraid of bullets that don't cause people to explode like blood-filled balloons! Soon, Huang Chuan and Shorty show up and duke it out with Ricky. In his first showing of mercy ever, Ricky horribly cripples Huang Chuan but let's him live. Shorty sees the defeat of his feminine ally and tries to escape, only to suffer the same fate as the Assistant Warden. With all his other foes defeated, Ricky now confronts seemingly harmless Warden.

Then the film ups the wierdness quotient as the Warden mutates into a large rubbery monster. At first the Uber-Warden has the advantage and gleefully tosses Ricky around. After a few hard hits and a few taunts, Ricky envokes his power of flashback. Recalling some of his breath control training, Ricky turns the tables and makes a major comeback. After punching a hole in the Uber-Warden's body, Ricky lifts his opponent and tosses him (with the aid of a clearly visible wire) into a huge meat grinder. With the Warden defeated, Ricky goes outside and punches through one of the prison's concrete walls. (Why didn't he just do this to begin with?!) In retrospect, was it really a smart idea for Ricky to supply his fellow convicts with an easily accesible exit out of the prison? The majority of those guys were in jail for a reason Ricky!

If you're a huge fan of Asian cinema and/or wildly violent martial arts films, The Story of Ricky is a must see! The film contains some of the most memorable gore scenes I've seen in a long time and keeps a pretty good pace. The special effects and gore range from realistically nasty (very rarely) to extremely cartoonish and fake. This in no way detracts from the film, but instead adds to its charm. The only people I wouldn't recommend this film to are those that would either take it too seriously (always a bad idea when dealing with cult and b-films) or those that are looking for an actual plot or decent acting. The plot is minimal and only serves as a connection between each extreme act of violence (and there's oodles of plotholes and unexplained happenings, such as the Warden's transformation into a large monster at the film's climax! That came way out of left field!), and the acting is pretty much sub-par. However, if you're looking for an ultra-gory flick to bring to a party, The Story of Ricky is definitely a good choice!