‘New York Ninja’ (review)

In 1984 John Liu (a Taiwanese martial art guru) wrote, directed and starred in a movie called New York Ninja. Then, almost immediately after filming finished, he abandoned it and retired from show business for decades.

37 years later, the unedited film was re-discovered by the movie distribution company Vinegar Syndrome who had to…well, add sound to it.

And by sound I mean dubbing the dialog with iconic 70s/80s B-movie actors like: Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Linnea Quigley (The Return of the Living Dead), Ginger Lynn (Young Guns 2), Cynthia Rothrock (No Retreat, No Surrender 2), and Don Wilson (Bloodfist) among others, adding period appropriate music and sound effects and creating a movie that is one-part WTF, one-part super awesome, with just a hint of Mystery Science Theater 3000 thrown in to create a truly GREAT BAD MOVIE.

For this kind of flick, the plot doesn’t matter…like, at all (because it’s not going to make any kind of sense whatsoever). It is more about enjoying the weird-ass experience unfolding in front of you on the screen as vaguely recognizable voices spill out of the face-holes of unknown actors who are doing their damnedest to act, albeit in the most amateurish of ways.

Basically, it’s a love letter to all the horribly bad movies that we Gen Xers watched on late-night cable (or rented from the local mom-n-pop video store with all the porn in the back) when both our choices and options for quality entertainment were limited.

In New York Ninja you get everything you could ever want in a movie: the gritty look of NYC before it got all prettied up, extreme cartoon-style violence, gangs who look like they are in a Village People/DeBarge/”Michael Jackson’s Bad video” cover-band, anime style emotion noises (grunts, oohs, ahhhs), choreographed fights that your twelve year-old brother might have staged in your backyard, a roller skating ninja (yes, you read that correctly), scenes of such random weirdness that your head will explode and an ultimate showdown with a sunglass-wearing baddie that will have you belly laughing until you pee your pants.

I have to admit that this is a movie that, upon first hearing about, sounded like a gimmick flick and in other hands it could have ended up like that. But the folks at Vinegar Syndrome reconstructed this lost film with total love for the genre and made something that feels like a warm, fuzzy memory for days long gone. From hiring actors that we (again, Gen X) grew up with, adding sound effects that you’ll recognize from Saturday afternoon viewings of Kung Fu Theater on the USA Network and the glorious awfulness of a plotless, rambling movie that will tickle your aging latchkey kid heart makes New York Ninja totally worth your time.

I sincerely recommend this movie for anyone who longs to pop the top on some Boone’s Farm wine, down a slice of fancy Viennetta ice cream cake and watch a movie that screams EARLY 80S B-MOVIE with your friends while laughing yourself silly.

It’s truly a fun time.

*  *  *  *  *
Directed by John Liu and Kurtis Spieler
Starring John Liu, Adrienne Meltzer
Featuring the voices of  Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Michael Berryman,
Cynthia Rothrock, Linnea Quigley, Vince Murdocco,
Matt Mitler, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Ginger Lynn