Starring Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Vithaya Pansringarm. Rated 18A.

Yes, writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn might need psychological counselling, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And, yes, the people who are positive they’ll despise Only God Forgives will almost certainly think a hellmouth has opened up in the theatre. But those predisposed toward severed limbs artistically flying by, tender homages to The Shining, and Thai cops who really know how to kill a karaoke party should fetch some popcorn and settle in. That way, when a torso is sliced open on-screen, you’ll enjoy a nice popcorn ’n’ ribs combo.

Dunking Ryan Gosling in moody blues and lots of blood in Drive was evidently just crazy-stylized, crazy-violent Winding Refn foreplay. Actually, given all the apparent sexual hang-ups in Only God Forgives, “foreplay” is probably an unfortunate word.

In any case, Julian (Gosling) and his brother Billy (Tom Burke) run a Bangkok boxing club as a drug-trafficking front. Billy sadistically murders a teenage hooker, attracting the attention of a policeman named Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm, who keeps a particularly large sword in his shirt) and the brothers’ mother, Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas), who is Satan cross-pollinated with Donatella Versace.

Winding Refn clearly has a bit of the old ultraviolence fetish. Speaking of things Kubrickian, he also enjoys those menacing tracking shots down long hallways à la a certain Overlook Hotel (cinematographer Larry Smith worked on three Kubrick films) and a drone-of-doom soundtrack. Everything is soaked in Underworld Red™—for anyone who is decorating—and blood, thoughtfully.

Gosling utters possibly nine words, seemingly mute in a poetic mood meld with his director, while Pansringarm is a dead-cool bad-good guy and Scott Thomas is fantastically insane.

Frankly, it’s all sidewalk-licking fun for us simple sickos—although, when Crystal tells Julian that his brother had a “bigger cock”, we hope she’s remembering that from their babyhood.