New York Ninja (2021)

I had heard a lot of good things about this, and people were asking me if I'd seen it. I discovered it was on Showtime, which my wife and I subscribed to because we wanted to watch the Bill Cosby documentary, but I'd forgotten to unsubscribe after the free trial was done. Since I was paying for it anyway, why not get my money's worth and make this happen? So here it is, June's indie post. In addition to us, our friends at Bulletproof have covered this as well.

New York Ninja was originally shot in 1984, then was found and finished in 2021. It follows John Liu, a TV sound technician whose wife is murdered when she witnesses a kidnapping. After grieving for a bit, the crime and lawlessness in NYC combined with the lack of justice for his dead wife leads him to take the law into his own hands. As the New York Ninja, his vigilante movement galvanizes the city, and at the same time, he gets closer to solving his wife's murder, and bringing down the kidnapping ring that led to her death. Meanwhile, a serial killer is terrorizing the population. What connection does he have with the kidnappings? And will our New York Ninja be able to take him down?

This was a fun time, and overall I enjoyed it. There were some great shots of New York City in the 80s, that I really loved; and the voice work from names like DTVC Hall of Famers Don "The Dragon Wilson" and Cynthia Rothrock, plus Ginger Lynn Allen, Linnea Quigley, Michael Berryman, Leon Isaac Kennedy, and PM mainstay Vince Murdocco, added a lot to the proceedings. I think my one qualm was the scenes where people were being victimized took too long before our hero jumped in--like we know what's going to happen, how much extra PTSD do the victims need? But that's a minor quibble, as the kid from Trekkies said, compared to an overall great time, and great work from Vinegar Syndrome and director/editor Kurtis Spieler. I don't want to say too much more, because I don't want to give much away, but this was a lot of fun. 

Among the many bright spots, Don "The Dragon" Wilson did a great job with his voice work for the star of the film. After doing Jesse V. Johnson's The Last Sentinel in 2007, he took 5 years off until he did a short in 2012, then had a small part in 2015's Scorpion King 4--which I've seen, but was dumped from Tubi before I could get images, so I'm waiting for it to be available for free again to do that in order to review it. Since then he's been doing a lot of stuff, some of which I've seen, but nothing like this. It's a different kind of challenge, we know he's an elite athlete, and in the 90s was one of the best DTV action leads; but here all that goes out the window and all he has is his voice. I think perhaps because he starred in a film like this, New York Chinatown, he understood this kind of New York-shot Hong Kong production, and knew what it needed to make it feel authentic. This is number 37 for him at the DTVC, meaning the 40 Club isn't far off.

Someone else the 40 Club is even closer for is Cynthia Rothrock, as this is her 39th on the site. Also funny is the fact that she was dubbing someone else's voice, because she had her voice dubbed by Brinke Stevens in the Leo Fong flick 24 Hours to Midnight. Her part isn't as big as Wilson's, but the fact that she could be a part of this, especially with her background in Hong Kong films, was still worth it. Like Wilson, she went on hiatus after making a film in 2007--Lost Bullet, which I still haven't been able to track down--and came back in 2012, and has been putting out stuff ever since. I don't know how much of that stuff we'll do, like Cool Cat or Martial Arts Kid, but I may get to it if that's the difference between her hitting the 50 Club down the road or not. As it is, her becoming just the sixth member of the 40 Club will be a huge deal.

Vinegar Syndrome is known for restoring and releasing on Blu-ray some films that we never would expect to find outside of a cheap VHS rip that may or may not have been uploaded to YouTube, but what they did here with Kurtis Spieler is another level. There's something almost Godfrey Ho-ish about it, like it's in that tradition, only this isn't "we have this film, we should use it to make money," this is more like "we have this movie, the world should see it." And the work involved to bring it to light like this, they essentially wrote a new script and new film score, then had all the voice work dubbed in. Unlike Godfrey Ho who tried to make something new with what he had, here everyone involved was trying to make the best representation as they could to do the people who worked on the film initially proud. It's not just a love of film, it's a love of the fans of this kind of film--us--and a love for the people who work both in front of and behind the camera to produce the films we spend so much time enjoying. This is why Vinegar Syndrome is the best in the business at what they do, but even for them they, and everyone else involved, really outdid themselves here.

Finally, we always talk about New York City being a character itself when a movie is shot there, and this film really captures that, especially the 1980s version. First, we had beautiful shots like the one above, which you don't always see in 80s NYC movies. Beyond the grit and grime and crime and crumbling infrastructure, it was still one of the greatest cities in the world, and this movie leaned into that part, while still giving us all the bad parts. There's danger everywhere, yet at the same time, millions of people worked and lived in the city at that time. The way the movie co-opts one of the city's most iconic symbols, the "I ♥ NY" logo, and turns it into "I ♥ NY Ninja" it accentuates that NYC dichotomy in the 80s, how the greatest city could seem so great and so not great at the same time. I went into this looking for a fun ninja romp, and wasn't expecting the level of nuance with which they handled the issues NYC was facing at that time, but it was a welcome surprise and something I appreciated.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Right now this is available to stream on Showtime if you're subscribed to that. Also, after July 1st I think you can buy this on Blu-ray from the Vinegar Syndrome site. This is both fun 80s ninja movie, and love letter to low-budget 80s genre films from the modern crew involved in getting this version to us. On that score, this is worth our support, and hopefully with that support if Vinegar Syndrome has more of these we'll get more releases.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15358226

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!