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Film & TV

Guilty Pleasure: Riki-Oh: The Story Ricky (1991)

You have a knife. The other guy doesn’t. How do you kill him? That’s right, cut open your stomach and strangle him with your own intestines (because that makes sense).

In the near future (i.e. 2001), all prisons are run by greedy and uncaring private companies. Riki-Oh (Fan Siu Wong) is one of many inmates, but he’s not like the rest. An incredible fighter, he spends the entire film grinding the prison goons into mush, often literally. It’s The Shawshank Redemption meets Enter the Dragon meets Dead Alive — with no budget.

The blood and brains just keep on flowing, but the gore looks so cheap even the most squeamish viewers will laugh at the film’s mindless violence, helped along by hilarious English dubbing.

As someone who nearly passed out watching Watership Down (I know), Riki-Oh is the perfect reminder that movie blood isn’t real. And it contains the funniest on-screen suicide I’ve ever seen. Shame on me.


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