By Patrick Bartlett (Twitter: @alleywaykrew)
We’re living in pretty bizarre times. Sure, I guess I mean that in general but what I want to talk about right now is just in terms of film. On the one hand, one can say that there’s an embarrassment of riches in terms of movies getting released theatrically and streaming on a regular basis. On the other, it feels like there’s this near-constant discovery or rediscovery of films in recent years. Films that were either lost in the shuffle over the course of time or films where all kinds of work was put into their creation and yet they never fully came to fruition. One such case is “New York Ninja”. Like so many others, I had no idea this film existed before recently but not only did the title grab my interest… the overall story of its genesis, gestation, and release made it something that instantly jumped to the top of my list of things to watch. I’m happy to report that it did not disappoint.
The basic plot isn’t entirely dissimilar from a film like “Death Wish” or comics featuring Frank Castle’s eternal crusade to punish the criminal element. In the opening moments of “New York Ninja”, we’re introduced to a man named John Liu. He’s meeting his wife who can’t wait to tell him that she’s pregnant. He’s going to be a father and is over the moon. However, literally moments later, his wife is assaulted and murdered nearby. John tries to let the police do their jobs but as time goes on, no real progress is made in finding and punishing the culprits. In fact, it just seems like one more crime in a city already overrun. John finally decides to take matters into his own hands, putting on ninja garb and going out to take on the criminal element of 1980s New York City.
I have spent a fair amount of time in the city of New York throughout my life and granted, it’s been within the last couple of decades and not in the ’70s (when I was not alive) or the ’80s (when I was a small child) but it seems like a fair amount of films of that era present the city as a legitimately terrifying place. I remember watching the original “Death Wish” when I was younger and thinking “wow, either Charles Bronson is incredibly lucky/unlucky or you apparently can’t walk a block in the city without a strong possibility of someone trying to rob and/or assault and/or murder you”. It actually feels kind of silly to me, judging from my experiences in the city where the most I’ve been accosted to date was by people trying to sell me their mixtape…but whatever. My mom still panics whenever I’m headed there so while I’m assuming there is an element of sensationalism to the depiction of crime in art from the ’70s & ’80s, there likely has to be an element of truth as well. Of course, people are going to look to action heroes like Marion Cobretti and John Liu, the titular New York Ninja.
At least they may have if “New York Ninja” had been finished. For some reason, there doesn’t even seem to have been an assembly cut of the film produced before recently. There wasn’t a soundtrack anywhere to be found as well. I’m still not entirely sure why the negatives just seemed to be the only thing that existed of this film in any form until they made their way to Vinegar Syndrome, who ultimately took said negatives and ostensibly created a film all their own from them. John Liu had no interest in revisiting his work, so filmmaker Kurtis Spieler went through all the footage and formed a narrative found within. Spieler and Vinegar Syndrome then got a lot of genre cinema stalwarts to record dialogue for the film, along with getting Voyag3r to record a new score for the film.
The final product is something I wasn’t sure how I was going to react to but ultimately found to be an incredibly entertaining piece of work. It’s definitely campy in a way that can border on goofy in moments but that’s balanced by some truly amazing stunt work and excellent martial arts sequences. On top of that, you have the natural gritty quality that comes from actually shooting in New York City in the mid-’80s. By that, I don’t mean that they shot in NYC studios or something of that nature. The whole film was a guerrilla production. “New York Ninja” was shot on city streets, rooftops, fields…basically everywhere there were not cops to shut down production… which adds the most wonderful atmosphere to the film and grounds it in a way that a lot of other films within the genre really can’t compete with.
I’m so glad for companies like Vinegar Syndrome releasing things like “New York Ninja”. I remember talking about another film recently, that they had be released on Blu-ray for the first time, with a friend who responded “there are movies that aren’t on Blu-ray?” and I had to explain that there are movies that never made it to VHS. Some that never made it from there to DVD. Many that haven’t made it to blu-ray and sadly will probably some that have been released that won’t make it to streaming and whatever else the future holds for films. It’s incredibly depressing for me as a movie geek. It really can’t be overstated how important what Vinegar Syndrome is doing for genre film currently is. Sure, there are other boutique labels putting out gorgeous packages but not in the same way. I genuinely hate the phrase “hidden gem” but there’s really no other way to describe what Vinegar Syndrome is not only finding and releasing but preserving. I have a feeling that a lot of people are really going to enjoy “New York Ninja” and it’s a movie that could have just as easily ended up lost forever or simply thrown away. Instead, we as film nerds have this wonderous discovery to enjoy, and that fills me with as much joy as I had while watching John Liu’s one-man ninja war on crime.
To find out where this film is available to stream, click here: Just Watch (T.B.A)
To find more information on Vinegar Syndrome, click here: vinsyn.com