What do you get when you make a movie in 1984, shelve it before production is finished, let it sit for 35 years, only to have it finally completed and released in the year 2021?
The answer to that would be the movie known as New York Ninja. This is an unreleased 1980s action movie that was completed and put out today.
The reason I wanted to talk about this is because of how absurdly rare something like this is to happen. Imagine getting the chance to release a long lost project from a bygone age in contemporary times. That doesn't happen very often.
And yet this is what boutique label Vinegar Syndrome actually did with the release of New York Ninja. You can see the trailer for yourself here:
What happened was that Vinegar Syndrome acquired the rights to long shuttered film production company 21st Century Entertainment and went through their archives. They soon found tons of footage for an unreleased movie named New York Ninja. There was no sound and the film was completely unedited, but there was something there.
Eventually one of the staff took this on as a project in his spare time. He went through the footage, edited it into a coherent movie, then Vinegar Syndrome helped him by getting a new score done and finding voiceovers for the dialogue.
You see, the lack of any sort of sound meant that this glaring flaw needed effort to overcome. They hired b-movie greats like Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Linnea Quigley, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Cynthia Rothrock, among others, to play the main characters. Because even though they discovered who the main actor was (the reclusive John Liu who disappeared from sight not long after this was shot) they knew nothing about the shooting, the rest of the cast, or anything about the history surrounding this film's creation. They were essentially going in blind.
And yet, they did it. The project was completed, and a movie was made. They did their best to take what they had a create a 93 minute action movie out of it. All their efforts made this a 1984 movie completed in 2021--not something that happens too often.
In fact it was so uncommon and bizarre that we talked about it on Cannon Cruisers. You can find the special episode here. Though I can also post it below for easier access. Listen to it wherever you would prefer. Just keep in mind that it is nearly half an hour long!
What is interesting about this project, to me, is the sincerity. They treated the material, as silly and goofy as it can be, as seriously as they could. They tried to match the lip flaps and follow the obvious plot through line than John Liu intended it to have, and the actors all do a decent job of taking you back to 1984 by way of 2021.
It is a very surreal experience to watch, but it never feels like the people making it are taking the experience anything less than seriously. And that benefits the final product tremendously. The last thing we needed was another purposefully bad movie trying to wink and nod with the irony crew that almost ruined b-movies for the rest of us.
What the movie does is take you back to a time when a movie could just be a fun night out with the guys. You never expect to see something on the level of Heat with low budget action flicks like this. That isn't the point. It is to feel good seeing a man take revenge on those that did him wrong, and set it right.
And in the process, make it as outlandish as possible. That is what makes movies like this so fun to watch and enjoy. They don't make them like this anymore, so it is nice to see someone got out of their way to fix one back when they were still being made.
I'll just end this shorter post by saying that if you enjoy low budget b-movies or general action movies from a time when they were as crazy as all get out and unafraid of being judged by small-souled bugmen then you should see this movie. Even if you think you've seen it all, you definitely haven't seen this one before.
It's guaranteed to put a smile on your face, and that is definitely worth your time. I guarantee it. We need more of that in the 21st century.
Sorry for the shorter posts this week. It just shook out that way! I'll see you next time for something brand new.
For more outlandish stories of good and evil, be sure to grab Brutal Dreams! A story of action, horror, and the light in the darkness!
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