New York Ninja

Let's keep it brief.

Needed a montage. Needed more Rattail. Needed a bit more blood.

Other than that, an excellent ninja movie from the 80s,lovingly restored. Voice work was top shelf, great soundtrack. Great video quality. Funny, which is the most important part. Is it Miami Connection? No. But it does stand alone and the laughs are present.

If you're a fan of bad action movies and cheese, I do recommend. A lot of visual gags and obvious plot holes / hardcore overacting. Kudos to Vinegar Syndrome for bringing a worthy relic back to life.

It's 'Death Wish' without the seriousness. It's 'The Exterminator' sans the heavy sleaze. It's 'New York Ninja'. From Vinegar Syndrome and Kurtis M. Spieler comes this put together "lost film" from its original director and star John Liu in his only American production. Notables names such as Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock and Michael Berryman do voice dubbing since the original audio material was lost.

John (Liu) learns his girlfriend Nita is pregnant and he's going to be a father. However she's killed after witnessing a young woman getting abducted on the streets of New York. Gangs control the city and an evil mastermind villain aptly named 'The Plutonium Killer' is behind most of the madness. Can John get revenge and turn the tide when he becomes the masked savior?

It's a 2021 production from a 1984 source well restored so it looks good picture-wise while it's very much feeling the 80's. Lots of poorly done fighting, bumbling cops, wacky clothed street hoods, one set of huge boobs and a villain who purposely gives himself radiation poisoning. As you know whenever a flick needed a crime ridden, seamy undertone NY was the go-to city.

Filmed without much of a budget you have to decide if the 80's charms and barrel of tropes - vigilantism, ninjas and poor acting - are enough to make this a good time. I appreciate the effort restoring and releasing 'NY Ninja' and there's some fun campy bits, but as a whole it's missing something.

Thanks to the TCM channel for airing this. Film fanatics are lucky to be able to view this rare and almost forgotten film. Seeing pre 9/11 NYC is always special, especially here since this movie could have easily been lost. The New York location here isn't just a backdrop but a character itself. NY Ninja is definitely a "B movie", but an enjoyable one you can watch on a rainy day. I don't know if it was because of a limited reconstruction budget or what but I do wish they would have hired at least a couple voice actors that had NY accents, that's my only complaint.

Anyway, how about those ending credits?

I am indeed hoping that the Ninja will return.

New York Ninja has that 80's action B-movie charm, and has a fair amount of unintentionally mildly funny scenes, but it's not nearly enough to carry it into cult status by 80's grindhouse fanatic's or "Bad Movie" fans.

I'm a big fan of unintentionally funny movies, especially if they are from the 80's, and even more so if they have Ninjas kicking ass. A Ninja in the gritty big apple... how could you go wrong? Well, as with any obscure low budget action movie, it doesn't matter how "bad" or "good" it is, what really matters is if it's entertaining. Movies like:

Miami Connection, Hard Ticket To Hawaii, Deadly Prey, Ninja III: The Domination, Nine Deaths Of The Ninja,

all made BOLD choices by their writers/directors that demanded your attention and sometimes confusion, but unfortunately NYN lacks ambition and far too much of the movie clunks around in unnecessarily boring dialogue, and repetitive scenes. There just isn't enough happening in this movie.

While I have a great appreciation for the amazing work that Vinegar Syndrome has done to dub, master, edit, and completely resurrect this movie, I do also think it's worth noting that cult movie enthusiasts are in store for a dull experience. I really wanted to like this movie, but it just doesn't have enough meat on it's bones to deliver the silly fun you expect.

As of this writing there are not many reviews on here. And from the majority of the ones I read, they don't seem to understand what's going on. This wasn't filed to "look" like it took place in the 80s. It WAS filmed in the 80s. The film was eventually scrapped and lost to time until it was picked up by a studio that specializes in underground/exploitation flicks. That actually should have been fairly obvious.

Unfortunately, the audio for the movie was nowhere to be found, and it had to be completely redone. I'm not super clear on how faithful they were to the original script, or even if they ever managed to get ahold of it. But honestly, I don't care.

For someone who is really into the over the top action flicks of the 80s and how ridiculously fun they can be, this movie checked off most every box. Basically, if you know, you know. Drink a few beers and give it a shot.