Like the mainstream river or the art-house pond, the musty marshes on the edge of cinema have their own canonical works. This year we are proud to present on the big screen Lam Nai-Choi’s Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. This Hong Kong adaptation of an ultra-violent Japanese manga exists for one reason only: to showcase some of the most ridiculously over-the-top gore ever. Ricky, a young man with superhuman strength, is incarcerated in a prison run by corrupt officials and seeks to use his martial arts to clean up the system. Banned in many countries, the film is a catalogue of brutality. It’s the Looney Tunes carried to their logical, deranged end point. A film, that would make Deadpool and Lobo drool with envy.
