'New York Ninja' was a genuinely surprising encounter for me. The initial pitch piqued my interest, an employee for Vinegar Syndrome was on a tour of the facility on his first day and was shown a pile of film cans marked 'New York Ninja' with the only information the staff had about the prints at the time being that it was an 'unfinished' film that was acquired as part of a larger film collection from a film company that went bust in the late 1980s.
The employee (soon to be re-director and re-writer of THIS film) badgered the higher ups SO much about exploring what this thing was, that they eventually relented and let him explore the contents. And what was found were silent rushes of an unfinished film shot almost to completion in 1984, that was basically missing some shots from the end of the film, and the effects/model shots.
The audio for the rushes was long gone, as was the script. The director was famous martial artist John Liu, who by this time was long retired, living in Taiwan and not at ALL interested in discussing the project. So...With a blessing that amounted to 'Do what you want with it' Director Kurtis Spieler scanned the rushes in HD, assembled them as best he could and got royalty from B-movies past to bring the film back to life with a new Voiceover track that mimicked the old style Martial Arts films (I.E: The dialogue doesnt *really* match the mouth movements, but the general gist of the story is still put across) and thus, 'New York Ninja' was reborn in 2021!
And I had a really good time with it!
The plot follows John, a loving husband to his wife 'Nita', on Nita's birthday John surprises her with some jewellrey and Nita surprises HIM by telling him that she's pregnant. Delighted! John heads off to go and prepare a wonderful dinner to celebrate, but disaster strikes when Nita goes to try and break up an attempted abduction of a woman in the streets and winds up with her throat slit.
It turns out that huge gangs of punks (who...incidentally, look like they were rejects from a Godfrey Ho adaptation of 'The Warriors') are kidnapping large numbers of women for an unknown purpose...This purpose is later revealed when we meet out 'big boss' for the movie 'The Plutonium Killer' a strange man who seems to depend on keeping his body highly radioactive in order to live. He can burn people/things just by touching them, and is deathly allergic to sunlight.
He's arranging for these women to be sold to an equally shady business partner for, unknown means. Nita got in the way of one of those abductions and paid with her life.
Johns heartbroken, but his friends and work colleagues, Journalists Randy and Jack drop by to comfort him. After pressuring the detective who's looking into the case for answers, John decides enough is enough and suits up to fight crime himself as 'The New York Ninja' word spreads quickly about his work, and the gangs begin to both speed up their operations AND try to shut the Ninja down before he gets *too* close to the truth.
And I think the work done on this film is really quite remarkable. to take, what amounted to silent footage, all shot in a random order with next to no rhyme or reason and produce something thats not only perfectly coherent, BUT FUN! and really well made...well its broadly speaking unheard of.
The script is punchy, light and playful in tone, rollerskating Ninjas were something I dont think i'd ever considered needing in my life, but this film really delivers on that. Naturally, when your dealing with a situation like this where there are portions of the film missing, unshot or not really applicable, there are going to be *some* problems along the way...The biggest one I found was with the overall pacing.
So the first act opens strong! REALLY strong! really setting the audience up for a good time, the second act just about maintains itself for *most* of the runtime, but in the back end of the second act, it starts to feel a little bit like its running out of steam. It starts getting a little repetitious, sequences begin to feel like they're being dragged out a bit and scenes just dont seem to feel as punchy as they do in the opening third. It JUST about starts to get to the point where I was beginning to drift away a bit, when it smacks RIGHT back into the action about halfway into the 3rd act, which is ultimately what saved it. But for a not insignificant poriton of this film, things did start to get a little dull.
Tonally its playing quite nicely with hammy over the top comedy moments and genuine drama and thrills. I think they nail the tone pretty solidly, and given the TOTAL lack of production reference material, they've really managed to give the characters a new lease of life, with almost all of them having multiple layers of compelxity and interest. they're really good fun!
The directions pretty solid too! John really seemed to get what he wanted out of this picture and for the most part theres a strong creative vision behind the camera leading to some...pretty defining shots for this era of film making. Like...I havent a doubt in my mind that had 'New York Ninja' been completed in 1984, it STILL likely would have got a Vinegar Syndrome release at some point, because its just that kind of movie. With its tongue planted firmly in its cheek, its there to have fun, and theres plenty of good moments to be had.
Add to this some FAB fighting choreography with masked close contact fighting for the majority of the film, some wonderful examples of weapon play and a complexly planned, but effortlessly executed sequences result in a BIG selling point for this film, its got the old style asian martial artist 'vibe' put through the lens of an American action movie, and thats a taste and feeling that I very much get on with.
As for the cine, its a little rudamentary if im being honest...there are a few 'WOW' shots in the mix across the runtime, but broadly speaking the shots are pretty basic and it really would have been nice to have seen a bit more experimentation in play on this, as when they do go the extra mile it REALLY looks great. With some tremendous use of colour across the runtime.
Lighting is a little underused here, a lot of the film is lit pretty flat, which was a bit of a dissapointment, as it would have been nice to see maybe coloured gels, neon, even a touch of chiascuro maybe worked into things to help styalize it a bit more...But...it's a 1984 low budget ninja movie...sooooo...I guess I shouldnt expect TOO much from it.
The editing work on this is astounding. Miraculous speaking as an editor. I've seen some film maker recycle unused footage into a totally different movie a couple of times in the past with mixed success, but THIS thing...if you didnt know it was a ressurected film, you'd think it was made at the time. they've absolutely nailed the tone, pacing, cut styles and transitions of an early 80s cinema production and it looks and feels GORGEOUS and barring ONE shot where they had to put a CGI explosion in (you'll know where when you see it) that DID throw me out of the movie a bit I think it does a superb job for the vast majorityu of the runtime...With lots of lovely cutaway footage and a solid pace to the edit structure. its amazing.
I wont go too much into performances as its a bit of a split production, the on screen actors are all fine, a little over animated and hammy in places, but I like my martial arts movies when they do stuff like that, the VO work is a B-movie celebrity smorgesboard. With the likes of Cynthia Rothrock, Michael Berryman and Don 'The Dragon' Wilson taking up key roles. Again, for the most part they absolutely nail the assignment. But there were one or two 'cameos' on the V/O front where it did wobble a *little* bit for me...not because the performances were bad at all...but rather...because the character on screen is in there late 20's to late 30's and the VO actor is clearly in there 60's and 70's and has been chain smoking for at least 20 years. It only really happens with a couple of characters...but it was noticable enough to throw me off a bit...which was a bit of a shame.
And the score...good lord, its perfect. Voy3ger (Voyager 3) provided this one and its as good an 80s synth score as your likely to get in the 21st century. Its pounding, heavy rocky poppy goodness and I ABSOLUTELY regret not nabbing the vinyl of this one when I had the chance.
All in all? 'New York Ninja' as a standalone work? is a fun and interesting movie that does more than enough to keep an audience engaged for the most part, but does sag a little in the middle and has a few production problems here and there...but as a reconstructed work with ZERO reference materials to work with? its nothing short of amazing.
While I do wonder just how successful this film would be today had it HAD a release in 1984/85...The sheer fact that Kurtis and the VS team ACTUALLY persevered with this and turned out a DAMN enjoyable movie will never not be beyond impressive to me. Absolutely worth your time to check out. If you arnt watching the 'New York Ninja' this weekend. What the HELL ARE you doing!?
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/new-york-ninja/
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