Movie Review: New York Ninja

New York Ninja (1985) (2021) 

Directed by John Liu, Kurtis Spieler 

Written by John Liu, Kurtis Spieler

Starring John Liu, Don The Dragon Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, Linnea Quigley, Michael Berryman

Release Date October 21st, 2021

Published August 22nd, 2022

The movie New York Ninja was lost to time. In 1984 director and actor John Liu gathered a cast and a crew and made an entire movie. Then, he never finished the movie. 37 years later the video distribution company Vinegar Syndrome, a boutique movie distribution company which specializes in movies few other studios wanted, outlandish and bizarre movies from foreign countries and the like, discovered that they had an unedited camera negative of the movie. 

This means that they had enough of the actual completed footage to edit into a complete movie. What they did not have, unfortunately, was the soundtrack including the recorded dialogue for all of the characters. That was unfortunate but the end of the road for this project as Vinegar Syndrome’s Curtis Spieler cut the movie together, wrote a script to match the action and tone of the film and then hired actors to provide voices, including some true B-movie legends, and New York Ninja was reborn. 

New York Ninja was the brainchild of actor-director-martial artist, John Liu. It’s rather unknown why Liu abandoned the project and how it ended being transferred around from owner to owner before ending up at Vinegar Syndrome. Regardless of the circumstances, New York Ninja is quite a revelation. That’s not to say it is a good movie, it most certainly is not, but it is a classically 80s style bit of nonsense that would have been right at home in the canon of Cannon Films or under the banner of the legendary schlockmeister Roger Corman. 

The story finds our lead character, played by John Liu, greeting his newly pregnant girlfriend. The girlfriend may as well have deadmeat tattooed on her forehead as they share a confusing interaction that ends after she ominously talks of her excitement about becoming a mother. In this conception of New York City street gangs roam the streets as of cosplaying The Warriors but with Halloween masks. They rob just about everyone and those who witness the robberies, assaults and rapes, simply turn the other cheek and go on with their business. 

Liu’s pregnant galpal happens to witness another woman being assaulted and because she didn’t just go on her merry way like nothing was happening, one of the thugs breaks away from the assault to murder her in broad daylight, on street teeming with cars, shooting her multiple times as she fumbles down some subway stairs. It’s a brilliantly unsubtle bit of off-kilter violence. You know this death is coming, everything about this screams motivation for a man to become a vengeance seeking Ninja. 

But first, John Liu has to show his range as he grieves his loss in the strangest way imaginable.  In a scene that I imagine would have resonated with a young Tommy Wiseau, Liu is alone on a rooftop of an apartment building where he had laid out a picnic for he and his lady love. He is desperately sad and after sending his news reporter coworker away, he proceeds to destroy the picnic table including a photo of himself and the girlfriend which he shatters. He then picks up the pieces of glass and crushes them into his hands leaving him cut and bleeding. 

When did he set up the picnic? Did he find out she was dead while on the rooftop? Did he set up an elaborate picnic on a bare rooftop after he knew she was already dead? None of these questions are answered and, even if they were answered, I can’t imagine the answers making any sense. All I do know is that this scene is awesomely funny. It’s a glorious piece of unintentional comedy, both poignant and hysterical, poignant for being so pathetic. 

In case you need it laid out any more blatantly, the death of his girlfriend is the impetus for Liu to become the New York Ninja, a martial arts vigilante. Or it will be his motivation, eventually. Before we actually see the New York Ninja in action we have to see him grieve in different locations and eventually show off some of his fighting skills out of costume when some thugs try to steal a thing he appears to be praying to? Not sure what it was but it was gold and he didn’t want to give it up. 

It actually takes forever for Liu to swear revenge. Before that, he becomes the Ninja and sets about saving random New Yorkers from random attacks by one of the City’s many roving bands of rapists and thieves. It’s actually an unintentionally hilarious send up of the perception of New York City in the 1980s. If you weren’t living in New York in 1984 you might have assumed it was overrun by gangs of rapists and thieves based on news coverage and comedy acts. Homer Simpson would appreciate the New York Ninja version of New York City as if it were a documentary. 

All the while the New York Ninja is finding himself as a crime fighter he’s missing the major criminal enterprise that was responsible for murdering his girlfriend. Considering that this gang is kidnapping attractive women, in broad daylight, and committing various murders, you might assume that Liu would target this group but that doesn’t happen until the final act when Liu finally gets around to trying to rescue nearly 20 or so beautiful women who were kidnapped in broad daylight and have been reported on repeatedly on the television network that Liu himself works for as a sound guy for the same reporter who is covering that story. 

Much of this odd, disconnected story was intentional, for comic effect. The intention of co-director, screenwriter and editor Kurtis Spieler who took John Liu's bizarre movie and pushed it to new Z-movie heights. With the help of distributor Vinegar Syndrome, Spieler created a new script, had that script performed by well known martial arts movie stars, and mixed the new comic dialogue over the unfinished work of original filmmaker John Liu. Famed figures such as scream Queen Linnea Quigley, beloved character actor Michael Berryman, and martial arts legends Cynthia Rothrock and Don The Dragon Wilson have leant their voices to the new track of New York Ninja. 

Now, I love the idea behind what Kuris Spieler has created here and some of the movie is quite fun. However, I can't help but feel a pang of disappointment. It's not a bad thing that we're all in on the joke of New York Ninja but it does take away some of the magic of it all. Take for instance, a movie like Miami Connection. The magic and appeal of Miami Connection is that no one involved is aware of the joke we in the audience are sharing. We are all laughing at the genuine effort of the filmmakers and the poignant, earnest failure is a delicious irony. 

You simply cannot manufacture that kind of ironic appreciation. There is only so much of that in New York Ninja and it comes from what little of John Liu's work remains. His deeply misguided plotting and lack of awareness of how a story should flow. In fairness, the dialogue created by Spieler is earnestly delivered and fitting for the strange anti-narrative of Liu's movie but knowing that this dialogue was crafted for the movie takes some of the thrill of New York Ninja away. 

Maybe it's just me, I felt the same way about the manufactured badness of Sharknado and never enjoyed any aspect of that brief cultural phenomenon. Perhaps, if you did like Sharknado and you don't mind having your so bad its good created with specific intent, then you might enjoy New York Ninja. For me, I will be over here enjoying Miami Connection, Fatal Deviation, and The Room.