Episode 12

Story of Ricky (1991)

Published on: 25th November, 2022

A story about a corrupt prison system, eyeball damage, crowd-provided exposition, and magically appearing items.

Listen in as me and returning guest, Joe, dust off our whistle-leafs and stretch our muscles in preparation for this knock-down, head-smasher of a film.

Written and directed by Ngai Choi Lam (Her Vengeance, Erotic Ghoast Story) and based on the manga "Riki-oh" by Tetsuya Saruwatari and Masahiko Takajo, Screen Anarchy said "this may be the greatest film ever made," while Cinemagazine called it "a movie with a lot of flaws." Well... Sounds like someone didn't understand just how brilliant this splatter-fu movie is!

It tells the story of Riki-Oh (Siu-Wong Fan), a young man with superhuman strength and a soft spot for the weak, the lame, and the bullied. In a world where prisons have become privatized, prisoner abuse runs rampant with no system of order apart from the corrupt warden and his staff as well as a small band of gang bosses. Well, Ricky ain't gonna stand for that. Once he sees an old man beaten up, he starts to show just how dangerous he is and it isn't long before the assistant warden, Cyclops Dan (played by Siu-Wong's father, Mei Cheng Fan), initiates a plan to take Ricky out of the equation. Dismemberment, disemboweling, and cranial fractures follow.

The film is currently available on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, DVD, and Blu-ray.

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About the Podcast

Subversive Cinema
The show about the weird, whacky, and downright wrong entries in cinema history.
There are a lot of films out there, so it's only natural that a decent amount of strange content exists. These are the films we examine.

Each week, I sit down with a guest and we take a look a one of these weird, whacky, or downright wrong cinematic entries. Each of them has something about it that makes it special — I call it the "Subversive Sauce" — and that is recipe we try to break down.

Is it scientific? Absolutely not. Will you learn things you didn't know? Maybe. Might you hear about films worth checking out? Most definitely.

Tune in and see what the subversion is all about!
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About your host

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Art Hall

Art started in the podcasting ecosphere back in 2007 with the outrageous, yet short lived, scripted variety show "WBKR: Buckwilde Radio," which claimed listeners from over 20 different countries. After hanging up his headphones and heading west to move to Los Angeles, he kept podcasting in his heart but only made appearances rather than producing or hosting. It only took a global pandemic, boredom, and the pleading from his buddy, Joe, to get back into the mic booth.