This’ll be a short review as this film can be summed up pretty quickly.

Having seen various versions of this, I decided to pop in the DVD version in finally. Call it semantics, but the movie title must be translated in English wrong, as the character is Ricky Ho, otherwise Ricky Oh sounds like a title for a comedy flick.

And Ricky Oh (I’ll call it what it’s written as) is anything but a comedy. Depending on your standpoint. Hong Kong is not best known for gore movies, the most popular of the genre being comedies, martial arts, dramas, ghost/vampire flicks (lacking “realism” or “gore”).

Ricky Oh is about a future (I think it was 2001) where prisons have now become financially lucrative methods of making money due to the privatisation of the prison service. Ricky is a prisoner on his way to live a life of grime and misery for committing a murder.

Serving time in prison is the least of Ricky’s problems as he realises the prison life is going to be tougher than he imagined. Not to worry though, our pal Ricky just happens to be super human and trained in a martial art that increases his strength, much like a power ranger….or something….

Anyway, if there was a Hong Kong movie equivalent of a John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, Peter Jackson, George Romero etc then this movie would be it, and perhaps all the movies by Ngai Kai Lam – who happens to mix gore with everything he can.

There isn’t much to say about the story, as its almost irrelevant – don’t expect realism

However, unlike said directors, Lam doesn’t have the equivalent budget, nor the sophistication to execute something very professional. For the most part it looks like a “garage” job – with wonky sets, hilariously bad acting, over the top performances of sadness and anger, and ridiculous plot holes – but to be honest, even with all these failings, you can’t help but be charmed by the attempt the director is making in trying to make something good.

With the lead in the movie looking like a young Bolo Yeung, and presenting himself in much the same manner – indeed Yeung starred in a couple of Lam movies, perhaps he was too old for this. In many ways you could compare the brutal violence and shock value as th equivalent of said actor’s movies.

Not to worry though, our pal Ricky just happens to be super human and trained in a martial art that increases his strength, much like a power ranger

The gore is good, as good as gore goes. Body parts are torn, mutilated, chopped, shattered, smashed, broken, minced, sliced, diced – are they cooked? I don’t think they are…shame….Lots of people die, but not enough for my liking, if you’re going to create a gore movie, I want lots of dead bodies. T

There isn’t much to say about the story, as its almost irrelevant – don’t expect realism. As mentioned Ricky goes to jail and deals with all sorts of oddballs – there are some funny scenes, such as the old guy having his face mutilated with a wood shaver, or when the bad guy is tripped over and falls with half his face in piece of wood with nails, hand attached to the face as well. Gory and nice, and funny as well.

We’re introduced to the motley crue of bad guys, from the assistant warden, warden his incomeptent fat arsed son, and the four heads of the each of the wings of the prison. Add to the growing of opium and brutal violence taking place in the prisons, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot else going on in there.

Extras on the DVD are pretty good including theatrical and euro trailers, in addition to a an interview with the stars, a gallery and also the lead demonstrating his kung fu ability in a gym.

Verdict: Entertaining, gory and short-lived burst of entertainement. Watch without a brain