Sent to a corrupt, privately run prison where inmates are abused, a martial arts expert shakes up the system by daring to fight back in this Hong Kong action movie. This is not your average martial arts flick though; the protagonist, as it turns out, has superhuman strength and the film is littered with graphic, gory imagery as his punches travel through whole human bodies and everything from eyeballs to entire human limbs are ripped out of their sockets. Some of the images are, in fact, downright disturbing thanks to the film's dark and twisted sense of humour; "you've got a lot of guts" exclaims the assistant warden as one of his minions uses his own guts to strangle the protagonist. Not all of the humour works though with the chief warden's overweight, idiotic son a particular nuisance, while a running gag with the assistant warden storing various small objects in his glass eye simply comes off as awkward. Scattered flashbacks that gradually explain why the protagonist landed in jail could have been melded in smoother too. For the most part though, this is an enjoyably zany affair. With all the blood and literal guts on display, this is a not a film for the squeamish, but with a perfectly throbbing music score and awesome special effects, this is an engaging tale of one man's anger towards a corrupt system motivating him to make a difference.
Review of Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
