“What was that?!?! What the @#$% was that?!? I mean… what was that?!?” These are the words of my friend Amy as we watched this week’s movie, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. I had assembled a new team, as my original Kung Fu Friday team has grown apart over the years and, in general, these movies are not to be watched alone. These new recruits were bright eyed and enthusiastic enough at the start and I thought they were ready. I had everyone. Joe, Nick, Amy. The analyst, brash young gun, the girl to sneer disapprovingly. But they weren’t ready. I hadn’t prepared them enough. They didn’t know what I was leading them into. And what were they in for on this fateful night? What were they about to be unknowingly exposed to? Only the greatest piece of cinema ever created by human hands!

Some movies waste time on silly novelties like special effects or plot, but not Riki-Oh. Riki-Oh focuses solely on being awesome. That is it’s one and only purpose. From the prisoner falling eye first onto the conveniently located bathroom board-with-nails-stinking-out-of-it to the man who eviscerates himself in an attempt to strangle Ricky with his own intestines, Riki-Oh is awesome, start to blood-spattered, gore ridden finish.

Alright, that being said, to truly enjoy this movie one must first turn off your senses of logic and reason and release your current conception of reality. This is essential as your current schema is insufficient for grasping what you are about to undertake.

(This acurately describes the feeling experienced while watching Riki-Oh)

I’m not going to go into to much detail regarding the story as I want you to go out and watch this movie (I mean right now. Finish reading my review, leave a comment, then go to Amazon or Netflix and order this movie.), but I will take you through the basics. Set in the “not to distant future” of 2001, prisons “like parking lots” are privately run. We meet Ricky, a super powered master of Chi Gung (The art that takes strength and grows stronger and stronger), as he is being lead into one of these corrupt prisons in shackles. He sets off the futuristic metal detector because of the five bullets lodged in his chest. When asked why they are there, he simply says “souvenirs.” From here the craziness ensues. A kindly old prisoner takes a hand-held wood plane to the face and we are off to the races. I can recall, with no real effort, 20 individual moments where I was both shocked and amazed.

This movie is certainly not for those with a weak stomach, but the immense amounts of gore are so over the top that it isn’t hard to parse apart the ridiculous, the terrible, and the awesome.

The prison is run by a warden (with an obese, spoiled, comic relief son) and his one eyed, hook handed assistant warden. Each cell-block is run by a super powered prisoner. Ricky battles his way through them all, discovering and destroying the opium fields that finance the prison, leading to a flashback explaining how he got into prison in the first place.

*Side note: This flashback is actually misdubbed. It shows Ricky’s girlfriend being kidnapped by a heroin dealer and inexplicably throwing herself from the roof of his hideout. Ricky kills the dealer (while wearing a very stylish camouflage poncho), taking 5 bullets to the chest. It leaves out the part where they addict her to heroin, which makes the suicide make more sense. I prefer the nonsensical version.

The point when I realized that this was the best movie ever made was where Ricky, having been cut in the arm, reaches into his cut and reties his own tendons in a nice neat bow. That was it. ‘Nuff said.

So go out and watch Riki-Oh. Right now. You won’t be disappointed.