One of the most violent kung-fu to slip and slide it's bloody ass over here from Asia, you can find clips from this little prison gore-fest on the CBS's "the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn" as well as Kilborn's other show, old episodes of "the Daily Show"! Of course, if you can get your own grubby talons on a copy like I have, then you don't really need to worry about a few clips, since you can watch it in all it's bone crushing glory! We open our tale of death from the East, with our hero, Ricky Oh, as he enters the beginning of a 10 year prison sentence for the murder of some asshole who kidnapped his girlfriend. Funny part about this is, the girlfriend died, but from running off a rooftop while attempting to escape her pursuers, NOT directly by the kidnappers themselves! HAHAHAHAH! Stupid broad, that's what you get for being stupid! "You are so stuuuuuuuupid!" as the kung-fu guy from UHF would say! So anyway Ricky, the guy with 5 bullets in his stomach (souvenirs from the guy he killed), enters prison, and soon learns that it's not gonna be as easy as trading cigarettes and getting raped by big psychos, it's an all out fight for power and survival! The prison is divided into 4 sections: North, South, East, and, surprise surprise, West. Each section is controlled by a super powered boss (think of the eighties when you were playing "Double Dragon" games on your Nintendo, then you should get the idea real quick). Sure enough, good ol' Ricky has to start butting his fists into other people's business on his first day, when he trips a "bully", dropping him face first onto a block of nails! Wildcat (said bully) then hires a huge tub o' guts by the name of Elephant to teach Ricky to respect his would-be ass pirates. Ricky replies with a hearty punch to the gut, disemboweling the fat fuck and punking his ass to oblivion! This garners Ricky the attention of the North Cell leader Hai, as well as the rotund and evil Assistant Warden (who has a hook for a hand and a glass eye that he keeps mints in!). Thanx to the magic of flashbacks (which we probably stole from the Japs in the first place anyway) we discover just how Ricky got to be such a hard ass hero: his uncle taught him the secret of controlling your breathing so as to focus your energy and heighten your strength... so if I take a few lamaz classes, does that mean I can pop my boss's head with my bare hands? As for Ricky, now he's gotta fight Hai, who has been ordered by the Ass(istant) Warden to take Ricky down. Despite a knife wound and shards of glass to the eye, Ricky still manages to pop out one of Hai's eyes! Hai then retaliates... by attempting to use his own large intestine to strangle the Rickmeister! Ricky battles back though, shattering the misguided Hai's skull in an "X-Ray Vision" shot! Now, with Hai gone, Ricky has the backing of his fellow North Cell inmates, as they plan to fight back against the evil Ass Warden and the corrupt bosses! Sure enough, after Ricky makes friends with Hai's godson Sha (who's also in the prison), the kid gets mutilated and killed by one of the other Cell leaders! In retaliation, Ricky burns down the poppy garden that the Ass Warden's got growing in the West Wing (and no, not a single Martin Sheen in sight!), setting him in the cross hairs of the Wing's leader, Huang Chaun! Ricky soon become the victim of an unfair double team though, as Shortie the South boss attacks Ricky too! This is all broken up by the East boss, Taizan, who wants the chance to defeat Ricky in a fair one-on-one! What action and intrigue! Before Tai and Ricky can really get it on though, the Ass Warden interferes, covering both men with cement and locking them up! At this time, the Head Warden (who's an even bigger asshole than Mr. Ass Warden) returns from his vacation to find his beautiful poppy crops destroyed! The Rickster breaks free from his concrete imprisonment though, and just as he's about to stomp the Head Warden into Mu Gu Gai Pan, Tai breaks through a concrete wall, looking for that one-on-one Ricky owes him! Sure enough, despite the fact he can shatter a prisoner's head with a simple blow, Tai still gets his ass kicked by Ricky, who rips open his face and shatters his arm! As punishment for all the trouble he's caused, the Head Warden has the prisoners bury Ricky alive (or they can be shot to death, their choice), and provided he can survive 7 days of breathing through a straw, he will then be released with a full pardon... why do I doubt this? He, of course, survives with no problem. What's he get for his trouble? A sucker punch from a back-hoe! Driving the back-hoe? None other than that brown nosing Huang Chaun! After he regains consciousness, next on the "Today's Ricky Tortures" List is... ah, here we go, "#3 - tie Ricky up, stuff his mouth full of glass shards, and slap him in the face repeatedly"! But, when Ricky spits the glass in the Head Warden's face, he gets caged up. Fed up with all this torture bullshit, Ricky simply breaks out and cracks a guy's head in half! After this, Ricky's people in the North Cell decide it's time to revolt, so they do, starting with the mutilation and dismemberment of the Ass Warden! The Ass Warden is then shot by the Head Warden with an elephant gun, causing him to inflate like a balloon and explode! I can't explain it either, but it's cool isn't it!? Ricky then proceeds to get back at Huang for that back-hoe shot, by making the poor prick a paraplegic while Warden shoots the pussy bastard Shortie as he attempts to escape the melee, causing him too to explode! So much action! Brain going numb! Okay, gotta hold on, because Ricky's final battle with the Warden is yet to come! To make it at least a little more fair, the Warden pulls a Bill Bixby on us, "hulking up" into a big, cheaply made man monster! Ricky still kix his sorry ass, plastic muscles and all, then drops him into a machine and makes hamburger out of him! Then, to make things right, Ricky liberates the prisoners... yeah, great idea hero! Not ALL those guys were wrongly put there! You moron, you just unleashed an army of hardened criminals on the innocent people of Japan! Smooth move ya jerk. Okay, stupid ending and bad "Monster Warden" makeup aside, this was Heaven in a plastic tape box! My eyes were treated to the love and corruption of MANY an act of violence this day! So much gore and kung-fu, ANY gore whore/action fan will be stuck in euphoria even hours after the tape has ended and rewound itself! Besides, this flick contains the chart topping Japanese pop single, "Playboy keeps going to the toilet, not knowing if he needs it or not"! Anyone who's not laughing about that song right now is either a corpse or a republican, or for any of you who ARE laughing about it, kill the guy with no sense of humor... we'll all be better off.

Sequels: Nope

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: FIST OF THE NORTH STAR or WICKED CITY