Reading a UK movie mag when Baby Driver was about to come out,I noticed an interesting interview with film maker Edgar Wright,who picked this a a "cult film" rec.Making a note of the title,the arrival of a Hong Kong challenge on ICM led to deciding it was the perfect time to meet Riki-Oh.View on the film:Becoming the first flick to be given a CAT III rating for violence in Hong Kong,co-writer/(with Masahiko Takajo) director Ngai Choi Lam & cinematographer Hoi-Man Mak wear it with pride, by pounding the screen with an endless splatter parade. Smartly deciding to point the action and gore in an animated Grindhouse direction (the film ended up not doing well in HK) Lam gives everything a handmade quality with excellent the rubbery practical effects and gallons of fake blood vividly bursting open in slo-mo Kung-fu fights.Pulled from Tetsuya Saruwatari's Manga/ Comic-Book, Lam and Takajo adaptation is given satirical jabs by the baddies being The Gang of Four, (changed to The Four Heavenly Kings in the Asia cut)and Riki-Oh trying to re-gain freedom from the prison walls The Gang of Four have placed round him. Hitting a konck-out, gore-drenched punch from the opening, the writers cast a rich,pulp atmosphere via the minimalist back-story of Riki-Oh being filled in mid-battle,with each fight brilliantly building up like a Comic-Book run,as Riki-Oh discovers new powers after each victory. Only 18 at the time,Siu-Wong Fan gives a blistering performance which highlights the never say die attitude in Riki-Oh's story.

The only way to experience this is with others. If you feel the need to strengthen your relationship with someone, this is a great film to watch together. Ideally, the presence of "substances" is recommended however since I am not of legal drinking age at the time of me writing this review, that will have to be something to look forward to in the future. Also do not watch the English dub, it removes a mandatory layer of hilarity if you watch it in Mandarin. Even if you are squeamish about gore, it's so laughably fake that I would find it hard to believe someone to get genuinely disturbed by it. Oh yeah, the whole thing is on YouTube so you have no excuse.

This movie is very faithful to the manga and is one of the best adaptations out there. People may be put off by the cheap look of the film but the core story is great.+) Very violent fight scenes and over the top moments that you will remember for a long long time. These include Ricky gutting an overweight man with his bare fist, squeezing a man's hands so hard they crumple, slapping a man in the back of the head so hard his eyeball flies out, punching the top of a man's head off, punch a man on the side of the head so hard that the force causes the other side of his head to explode, and fighting against a man who suddenly transforms into an ugly "Hulk" like creature and killing him by grinding him into hamburger meat. Let's not forget the famous head smash scene and the "gut" choke scene as well.+)The core story is well written+)Fan is great as Ricky~The English dub is very bad and the effects are cheap

I gotta say, the best way to put this movie is that it's Evil Dead 2 as a comic book movie with martial arts, Kill Bill villains and the blood effects from Braindead. Does that sound awesome? Of course it does!I think the best way to put this is that it's the best homage of manga currently made in live action. It's a little cheesy and silly, but it adds to the movie for the same reason it adds to The Evil Dead. And I did watch this with the terrible English dub and I don't know how I would have felt watching it with subs, but the terrible dub adds to the atmosphere this movie is trying to make, The Evil Dead in manga form. This movie just leaves you with a weird feeling, there's a final fight but there's not really and ending, it just kinda stops but again, it adds to the atmosphere. After watching this movie, I felt like I had read 50 mangas in one sitting, it was incredible.There was so many memorable characters, I'm only going to mention the main 3 in my opinion. Siu-Wong Fan plays Riki-Oh Saiga or Ricky, a young adult with superhuman strength who fights to protect himself and his girlfriend from street crime. You could almost call it a superhero movie, although you never see him fight street crime, you just see him on the prison bus going to jail for manslaughter. The next character is Mei Sheng Fan plays the Assistant Warden who has a hook for a hand. But it had to hooks that he can move around and he doesn't just use it as a weapon but as a fork too! I'm not going to lie, I love this guy, he kind of holds the movie together as Ricky doesn't really talk and the Warden talks in small sentences and then stays silent until he's replying to something, the Assistant Warden is really the only one that talks and he's kind of in the background when the warden finally shows up, but he holds the movie together for a bit and he definitely works. The final character is Ka-Kui Ho as Warden Sugiyama and he is a perfect villain for this movie. He's a sick bastard with an annoying as hell son. (SPOILERS) * And he is basically the hulk. Really, he is. He turns into a near unstoppable monster whenever he gets really angry or paranoid or something. He takes pills to stop it from happening when he doesn't want it to, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have control over it, I just don't know what causes him to become it. Is it anger? Being upset? Worried? Upset? Showing high levels of emotion? Is it timed to when he needs to take his pills? I honestly don't know, but just like the Crow's powers in The Crow, we really don't need to know. * (SPOILERS OVER)The plot is Ricky is caught of manslaughter for fighting crime. It's a future dystopia and crime has run amok so Ricky with his powers tries to fight it, kinda like a superhero! I honestly could see if someone considered this a superhero movie as it is based off comic source material. Anyways, Ricky gets sent to prison and tries to fight crime there and after a series of events ends up freeing everyone. It sounds like I'm leaving stuff out and technically I am, but that is really the best summary I can give without going into too much detail.There's no explanation for a lot of stuff, but its forgiven because thats not whats important, whats important is what you're looking at on the screen when watching it, the story it's telling you at that time, not the story before it or after it, the story then. And I really can't help but just love these characters, like I said before, they're all really good and I can still remember a lot of funny over the top moments that still shock people today. My god, is there a lot of blood, if you get squeamish over blood in something like Die Hard or Robocop, this movie is not for you.Story of Ricky is great and definitely for a specific group of people. If you liked Braindead, I can't see anyone not having a blast watching this.Score: 7.6