New York Ninja

            This gloriously bonkers low budget 1980s action film was rescued from the trashcan of memory by the good people at Vinegar Syndrome and is being released in select theaters across the country and in a beautiful 2-disc Blu-ray.

            The story behind this release is even wackier than the film. Taiwanese martial artist John Liu (The Invincible Armour) shot a homage to the kind of Cannon action films popular at that time. Filmed around New York on 35mm he starred himself as a vigilante in a white ninja outfit (and roller skates!) fighting off the gangs and criminals overrunning New York City. But Liu abandoned the project and the cans of film (without sound) were left to languish in a vault for many years. Kurtis M. Spieler and Vinegar Syndrome took on a seemingly impossible mission- by editing the film (without the help of a script) and by lip-reading to recreate the soundtrack- even using famed cult movie figures to dub the actor’s voices. The result is a wonderfully goofy gift for cult-hounds and a great time capsule to New York in much grittier times.

            Subways covered with graffiti inundated with roving gangs of hoods hassling and robbing people is now the norm in scary 1984 Manhattan. And young women are mysteriously being abducted and never seen again. John (John Liu), working the sound for popular roving female TV reporter Randi Rydell, is celebrating the fact that his wife Nita just announced she is pregnant. When Nita is witness to an abduction she is stabbed to death and John is hellbent on revenge. “The city owes me- justice!” He dresses in a white masked ninja outfit and goes in search of bad guys and the people responsible for his wife’s death.

             I can’t even begin to describe the delirious delight of this NY Ninja on roller skates targeting gangs wearing the cheesy punk outfits that movie delinquents wore at that time. The villain’s chauffeur using “Drunken Sword Style” martial arts against John at the end is a riotous highlight.

            The main bad guy drives around in a stretch limo wearing black sunglasses organizing the abduction of women for some nefarious purpose. He was once with the CIA but exposed to radiation and now occasionally transforms into a hideous monster who delights in strangling women leaving them (with radiation burns) dead in trashcans. 

            The black cop investigating the kidnappings and killings suspects that John is the NY Ninja but the vigilante has become an urban hero with kids and there are tee-shirts utilizing the I “Heart” NY logo with I “Heart” NY Ninja.

            The multitude of clumsily choreographed action scenes add a real camp charm to the film. The voices used include such cult luminaries as Leon Isaac Kennedy (Penitentiary), Linnea Quigley (Night of the Demons), Cynthia Rothrock (Sworn to Justice), Don “The Dragon” Wilson (Bloodfist), Ginger Lynn (The Devil’s Rejects). Michael Berryman (one of the desert cannibals in The Hills Have Eyes) dubs the lead bad guy, now nicknamed the “Plutonium Killer” by the press. They all play the material straight which makes it even more inadvertently hilarious.

            The 4k Blu-ray release includes many fascinating documentaries about the history of the film and the labor of love that brought this wildly enjoyable treat into the light.