“New York Ninja” (2021 release of a previously lost 1980s movie) Film Review
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)
From the New York Ninja press material: Originally directed by and starring martial arts legend John Liu (The Secret Rivals, Invincible Armor) in his only American production, New York Ninja was filmed entirely on 35mm in 1984, but the project was abandoned during production resulting in all original sound materials, scripts, and treatments going missing. 35 years later, Vinegar Syndrome acquired the original unedited camera negative and painstakingly constructed and completed the film.
Holy cow, what a movie! Praise be to Vinegar Syndrome for bringing this lost film to life. New York Ninja is an unearthed blast from the past, and it’s certain to find a cult audience among fans of martial arts movies, 1980s action flicks, and anyone looking to have a fun time in front of the big screen or home screen.
High-kicking Taiwanese actor/director John Liu — whose many credits include The Invincible Armor (1977) and Dragon Blood (1982), stars as news crew sound technician John, whose pregnant wife is killed in the early minutes of the film. After some scenery-chewing grieving, he becomes a masked vigilante in a good-guy white ninja outfit, complete with shuriken (throwing stars) bearing his alter ego name of New York Ninja. He puts together the pieces that his wife was killed when she witnessed a human trafficking gang at work and goes after those baddies, but not before warming up his fighting techniques on street gangs with members who wear Halloween masks and shake down elementary school-aged kids for money.
There’s so much jaw-dropping, head-scratching absurdity and wackiness on display that it would be a shame to spoil much for future viewers, but let me entice you with a few examples, just so you know what kind of lunacy you are in for: John goes spearfishing in a red Speedo in the New York harbor with a street kid in tow and takes on a gang of street toughs while he is wearing his ninja outfit and roller skates, while a character named The Plutonium Killer offs his victims with radiation. As an added bonus, the film captures 1980s New York City in all of its colorful, graffiti-covered, seedy glory.
With no script, sound or records from which to work, Kurtis Spieler, who receives a codirector credit along with Liu, rewrote and reedited New York Ninja. The result is incredible, and it’s amazing to know that this film, as loopy as it is, was originally made with a big heart and that Spieler’s effort to bring Liu’s unfinished project to the world is nothing short of astounding.
Regarding the new sound for the film, Spieler’s dialogue is delivered by a who’s who of performers from genre films of the 1970s and 1980s to the present, such as Don “The Dragon” Wilson (the Bloodfist franchise), Michael Berryman (the original The Hills Have Eyes and Weird Science), scream queen Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Demons), Leon Isaac Kennedy (the Penitentiary franchise), Cynthia Rothrock (China O’Brien), and Ginger Lynne Allen (the Vice Academy franchise). All of the voice actors play it straight and do a great job. Experimental rock band Voyag3r provides a period-authentic score which fits the proceedings marvelously.
New York Ninja is by no means a cinematic classic, but it’s absolutely a fully entertaining hour-and-a-half.
New York Ninja will be released by Vinegar Syndrome on Blu-Ray on November 1st. A 35mm theatrical run of the film will occur in early 2022.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/) and Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast (decadesofhorror.com/category/classicera/). He also writes for the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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