A hilarious Asian live-action manga movie, based on a popular Japanese comic book (looking suspiciously similar to the classic Fist of the North Star), lauded for its total commitment to visceral violence and insanity. THE STORY OF RICKY is darned near perfect for a comic-book-turned-movie, an action-packed and visually arresting display of superhuman skills, bad guys versus good guys, and plenty of bizarre dream-like situations. The plot is wafer thin and needs to be so. Basically it involves our hero Ricky (the Bruce Lee-alike who smashes and crashes his way throughout the movie) getting sent to prison after murdering the drug dealer who caused the death of his girlfriend. After standing up for himself and the fellow prisoners, Ricky is then continuously beaten and tortured until the prison riot that marks the film's close.
Sure there are plenty of holes and negative aspects of this film. Taken as a serious work of art, it just doesn't hang together. The dialogue is dumb on purpose and the acting hardly sets the screen alight, but then it doesn't need to. The storyline makes no sense whatsoever if you think about it at all. If Ricky has all these powers why doesn't he just escape at the start instead of letting himself getting chained up and the like? Instead, THE STORY OF RICKY is happy to display one incredible scene of superhuman feat after another. Ricky is buried alive, blinded with crushed glass, squashed under a ceiling, and stuck fast with cement. He has the tendons severed in his arm but manages to knot them back together and return fighting. He endures a gob full of razor blades and some of the hardest beatings you will ever see. This is nothing in comparison to what he does to the enemy, though.
Bad guys are skinned, crushed, and have limbs literally torn from their bodies. Ricky's punches have the power to break bones and knock heads off entirely. He punches through stomachs, knocks out eyeballs, and shoves the bad guys into meat grinders. It's all amazing stuff that will have you glued to the screen. The special effects are tacky but colourful in much the same way as BRAINDEAD; you'll never be disturbed or horrified for an instant as instead the film is infused with that particular Asian humour that makes light of the darkest situations.
Although BRAINDEAD wins hands down due to the non-stop barrage of visceral carnage (here, you have to wait for the plot to catch up between each set-piece), THE STORY OF RICKY still deserves major mention for some of the truly outrageous gob-smacking scenes of brutality and over-the-top mayhem. The highlight has gotta be when a bad guy slashes open his own stomach in order to strangle Ricky with his intestines. Or perhaps the "did I dream that?" finale in which a villain turns into a Hulk-like monster for a splattery showdown with our God-like hero. There's stuff here you won't see anywhere else, which is why I wholeheartedly recommend this film for gore fans everywhere.
Sure there are plenty of holes and negative aspects of this film. Taken as a serious work of art, it just doesn't hang together. The dialogue is dumb on purpose and the acting hardly sets the screen alight, but then it doesn't need to. The storyline makes no sense whatsoever if you think about it at all. If Ricky has all these powers why doesn't he just escape at the start instead of letting himself getting chained up and the like? Instead, THE STORY OF RICKY is happy to display one incredible scene of superhuman feat after another. Ricky is buried alive, blinded with crushed glass, squashed under a ceiling, and stuck fast with cement. He has the tendons severed in his arm but manages to knot them back together and return fighting. He endures a gob full of razor blades and some of the hardest beatings you will ever see. This is nothing in comparison to what he does to the enemy, though.
Bad guys are skinned, crushed, and have limbs literally torn from their bodies. Ricky's punches have the power to break bones and knock heads off entirely. He punches through stomachs, knocks out eyeballs, and shoves the bad guys into meat grinders. It's all amazing stuff that will have you glued to the screen. The special effects are tacky but colourful in much the same way as BRAINDEAD; you'll never be disturbed or horrified for an instant as instead the film is infused with that particular Asian humour that makes light of the darkest situations.
Although BRAINDEAD wins hands down due to the non-stop barrage of visceral carnage (here, you have to wait for the plot to catch up between each set-piece), THE STORY OF RICKY still deserves major mention for some of the truly outrageous gob-smacking scenes of brutality and over-the-top mayhem. The highlight has gotta be when a bad guy slashes open his own stomach in order to strangle Ricky with his intestines. Or perhaps the "did I dream that?" finale in which a villain turns into a Hulk-like monster for a splattery showdown with our God-like hero. There's stuff here you won't see anywhere else, which is why I wholeheartedly recommend this film for gore fans everywhere.