Category III

Riki-Oh - The Story of Ricky

One of the most absurdly violent films ever made, this outrageous comic book of a movie is short on style but makes up for it in sheer audacity and excess. Brooding street kid Ricky Ho (Fan Siu Wang, playing the part of avenging angel with self-righteous earnestness) walks into the corrupt corporate prison system with superpowered martial arts skills and proceeds to punch his way through every bullying thug and sadistic guard who comes his way. Literally. His fist puts a gaping hole through the stomach of a giant sumo-wrestler-sized thug and the jaw of a pompadoured bully, and turns the skull of a pathetic guard into a bloody stump. As Ricky becomes a hero to the downtrodden prisoners, the assistant warden (who keeps breath mints in his removable glass eye) organizes the dreaded "gang of four," the cell block gang leaders, to take Ricky down. Fat chance!

There's nothing realistic about the bone-shattering, blood-splattering spectacle of crushed heads and snapped limbs, but the unrestrained display becomes so preposterously grotesque it hardly matters. You'll be convinced that the "Oh" in Riki-Oh stands for "Oh my God, did I really see that?" Yes, Ricky really does tie a sliced tendon with his teeth, a thug cuts open his gut and uses his own intestines to strangle Ricky, and the warden (for no apparent reason) puffs himself up into a giant rubber ogre. Ricky's curvy, feminine nemesis Rogan is played by Yukari Oshima, the butt-kicking, all-woman star of Angel and others. --Sean Axmaker

A young man with superhuman strength is incarcerated at a prison run by corrupt officials and seeks to use his martial arts to clean up the system. The story is set in the year of 2001 in a prison owned by a major company. A new prisoner sees his friends being harassed and killed by the guards and seeks his revenge.System Requirements:Run Time: 90 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ANIMATION/ADULT SWIM Rating: R UPC: 631595008623 Manufacturer No: TSDVD-0086

Girls Unbutton

Fruit is Swelling

Erotic Ghost Story: Perfect Match

This popular and beloved film, produced by Tsui Hark and directed by Ching Siu Tung, is a standout in the Hong Kong supernatural-action genre and spawned many sequels and copycats. A Chinese Ghost Story stars Leslie Cheung as Ning Tsei-Shen, a timid and likable tax collector. Looking for a place to stay the night, he comes upon a spooky abandoned temple occupied by a tough Taoist swordsman (Ma Wu). Despite his warnings, Tsei-Shen stays anyway. Later he encounters a beautiful maiden (Joey Wang) who he quickly falls in love with. Unfortunately, she is a ghost who is being forced to trap men for an evil spirit who feeds on their souls. A Chinese Ghost Story has been widely praised for infusing the genre with humor, action, romance, and inventive special effects. Memorable images include an attacking mile-long tongue and a cloak opening to dozens of ghastly decapitated heads. The final battle in hell is said to have inspired scenes in Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness. And the film has its share of homage: A group of crusty zombies are reminiscent of the skeletons in special-effects guru Ray Harryhausen's 7th Voyage of Sinbad--and they are eliminated by Tsei-Shen in comedic slapstick fashion, not unlike the style of Charlie Chaplin. Cheung and Wang are a likeable romantic pair, and Ma Wu creates a hilarious character who breaks out into song and a martial arts dance when drunk. The DVD transfer is topnotch, with the film's misty mood lighting and fluttering gowns appearing layered and crisp. It's a must-see for Hong Kong action film fans. --Shannon Gee

Former Miss Malaysia and current butt-kicking Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh leaped to international attention costarring alongside Jackie Chan in Supercop. The film was actually the third installment of Chan's successful Police Story series, but that didn't stop cagey producers from turning out Supercop 2 as a solo vehicle for the lean, lithe Yeoh. She travels from mainland China to Hong Kong to "advise" local cops on a Chinese drug lord and discovers Rong Guang Yu (from Iron Monkey and Rock and Roll Cop), her former lover and now the leader of a militia-style gang in partnership with her quarry. Yeoh is in fine form, kicking off the picture with a thrilling close-quarters battle in a high-rise hotel, but the complicated plot of high tech crime, double crosses, and conflicted loyalties strangles the action and slows the film despite such action highlights as an impressive three-man raid on a well-armed criminal den. (Jackie Chan's jokey cameo as a cop in drag doesn't really help matters.) The film finally regains its energy in an explosive free-for-all bank heist climax, in which the painful English dubbing becomes all but unnoticeable as bullets fly, bodies crunch, and balletic Michelle Yeoh moves like a dynamo. --Sean Axmaker

Red to Kill

Daughter of Darkness

My Wife's Lover

The Eternal Evil of Asia

Raped by an Angel

Crazy Love