New York Ninja

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.

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.

This is a whole bunch of random nonsense. It's hard to known what was intended so how do you rate it? What we see is hilarious and worth it, but was it what was meant by the footage? Meh, who knows, it's still worth seeing for sure!

Wife gets killed as she sees another woman being abducted by a gang that's been abducting woman. Husband decides to seek the killers out and avenge his dead wife.

These were real popular during the 1970's & 1980's. One man fighting against a larger group of criminals to administer his own brand of justice. Basic story is okay.

First, the fight choreography is absolutely terrible. When it's one against six people, each of the six will wait his turn before attacking. Some of the fights, the loser doesn't really try. Second, whenever someone has a gun except the very first scene with one, all they do is talk. They don't shoot. Gimme a break.

Instead of the fight scenes being the highlight of the movie, they are the low points. They ruin the film.

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.