“This city owes… justice.” Vinegar Syndrome has unveiled the brand new trailer for a long lost 80s campy action film titled New York Ninja, which has been finished and is ready for release in 4K this year after a premiere at Beyond Fest. Originally directed by & starring martial arts actor John Liu in his only American production, New York Ninja was filmed entirely on 35mm in 1984, but the project was abandoned during production resulting in all original sound materials, scripts, and treatments going missing. 35 years later, Vinegar Syndrome acquired the original unedited negative and painstakingly completed the film. Now with the voices of Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Linnea Quigley, Michael Berryman, Vince Murdocco, Matt Mitler, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Ginger Lynn Allen, and Cynthia Rothrock. A sound technician for a news station becomes a vigilante ninja in NYC after his pregnant wife is murdered. Restored in 4K from the original camera elements, New York Ninja is “finally available in all of its ridiculous over-the-top glory for the first time ever… after spending nearly four decades in film obscurity.” Okay, I NEED to see this.
Here’s the official 2021 trailer (+ poster) for John Liu & Kurtis Spieler’s New York Ninja, from YouTube:
John (John Liu) is just an average man working as a sound technician for a New York City news station, until one day his pregnant wife is brutally murdered after witnessing the kidnapping of a young woman in broad daylight. Turning to the police for help, John soon learns that the city is overrun with crime and the police are too busy to help deal with most of it. Dressing as a white ninja, John takes to the streets as a sword wielding vigilante hell bent on cleaning up the streets of the city he once loved by ridding it of muggers, pickpockets, rapists, and gang members. However, in John’s quest for justice, he soon finds himself the target of every criminal in the city, including a mysterious villain known only as the Plutonium Killer. Will John survive to become the hero that New York City so desperately needs? New York Ninja is directed by John Liu (who also directed Zen Kwan Do Strikes Paris, Made in China, Dragon Blood in the 80s) & Kurtis Spieler (Sheep Skin, The Devil’s Well). Produced by Brad Henderson, Arthur Schweitzer, Kurtis Spieler. The finished film will premiere at Beyond Fest 2021 in LA this year. Vinegar Syndrome will then debut New York Ninja on VOD / DVD later this fall. Stay tuned for more. Who’s ready to watch this?