This evening, I quickly wanted to touch on a subject that’s very near and dear to my heart. As a youngster, I fancied myself as somewhat of a Kung Fu film enthusiast, but generally stuck to the lighter Asian fare of Jackie Chan flicks. Considering I was a middle school-aged dork at the time, and barely had a dial-up modem at my disposal, hardcore Karate shit was generally pretty hard to run across. Basically, I was out of luck if I wanted to see anything that couldn’t be found nestled within the modest action section of my local Movies Plus. Suffice it to say that I watched BloodSport more often than would be advisable.

Around the time of my Kung Fu discontent, Comedy Central had just been picked up by the local cable provider which catered to my home town. While the network was mostly screening that horrible game show Make Me Laugh at the time, you could potentially catch a solid SNL re-run every so often if you were lucky. I think they were screening The Gods Must Be Crazy quite a bit back then too. Anyway, The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn had just premiered as well, and I thought it was pretty awful on the whole. I perceived Kilborn as an arrogant turd since his days anchoring Sports Center, and really had no interest in watching him crack wise on current events or hit on actresses.

One portion of his show that I did enjoy, however, was the 10 or 20 seconds prior to him asking his guest an arbitrary 5 questions every night, in which they would loop some clip of a giant Asian fellow smashing another guy’s head to oblivion. The clip was both super stupid, and totally outrageous, but I was kind of obsessed with the thing. Sooner or later I was able to track down the name of the film from which the excerpt was lifted, and even locate a copy of the entire film at a newly open Blockbuster franchise that had popped up around my house. Essentially, the stars had aligned, and had granted me the opportunity to watch one of the dumbest things ever laid to celluloid.

The movie in question is entitled Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, was released in 1991, and could best be described as containing elements of Mortal Kombat, Cool Hand Luke and Big Trouble in Little China. Really though, the thing is mostly just horrible. The Story of Ricky outlines the journey of a fellow named (you guessed it) Ricky, who is crazy good at fighting, and possesses an unwavering moral compass. I should also mention that Ricky has the power to maim the jerks he fights with a single strike, punching the flesh off human bones with the greatest of ease. The movie makes an effort to explain how our hero obtained this super power at one point, but the back story is basically erroneous for the most part.

Anyway, Ricky is thrown into the slammer at the outset of the film, and decides, for one reason or another, to take down the four criminal bosses who control each of the four wings of the prison. The plot is straightforward enough, but the special effects end up taking center stage here, as the amount of gore that is shoved down the viewer’s throat is truly remarkable. All the exploding appendages and organs may not appear totally life-like throughout, but I get the sense that the folks behind Riki-Oh were never striving to pound out a piece of Kelly Reichardt-esqu Neorealism.

I was going to rank my favorite fights from the film in ascending order awesomeness, but I tend to love each one as much as the last. There’s simply no way I could Sophie’s choice these brawls even if I tried. They all mean too much to me. Riki-Oh provided one of those transcendent experiences as a kid, where a piece of art, film or music makes the leap from appearing as one the dumbest things ever, to eliciting some crazy fandom. I’ve heard folks describes similar experiences while listening to The Ramones eponymous debut, and I can understand that. The violence here might at first be off-putting for some, but I’m sure you’ll be applauding each splintered bone and exposed intestine by the time the credits roll on Ricky.

- Zaius