In many ways, John Liu’s New York Ninja is a perfect artifact of the mid 1980s: a time capsule of the decade’s aesthetic, fashion, and sensibilities. And yet, in a very real way, it did not exist until the past six months.

To be clear, this is not a period piece: Liu, a familiar face from such Shaw Brothers kung fu pictures as The Secret Rivals and Invincible Armor, did indeed star in and direct the film on the streets of Manhattan in 1984. However, when Liu’s production company went belly-up, the project was abandoned and believed lost– when it was believed to have existed in the first place. Fortunately for us, the footage was discovered in the processing lab’s archives by the trash-cinema archaeologists at Vinegar Syndrome. Unfortunately for them, what they found was less than screen-ready: about eight hours of unedited dailies (which may or may not have been completed in the first place) with no audio, no credited cast or crew, and no copy of the script. If this footage was ever going to be watched by anyone but the most dedicated die-hard, some work would need to be done.

Fortunately there are few more dedicated die-hards in this world than those invested in exploitation film restoration. Under the “re-direction” of film editor Kurtis M. Spieler, the footage was painstakingly assembled into something resembling a narrative. A new script was written based on existing production notes, lip-reading, and guesswork. Since the producers were unable to identify, much less locate, the original cast, a new team of voiceover artists was assembled, featuring such notables of ’80s schlock cinema as Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Linnea Quigley, Cynthia Rothrock, and Michael Berryman. A new score was written and performed by retro synthwave group Voyag3r, and the action was foleyed using all vintage sound effects. The resulting film is, if not professional, at least seamlessly amateurish.

So now, nearly four decades after shooting, New York Ninja finally, officially exists, opening in its local premiere this week at the Somerville Theatre. Whether it was worth the wait likely depends on your tolerance for action-movie cheese and endless montages of roundhouse kicks to the head and groin, but if you like this sort of thing, you’re going to love this.

The plot, such as one has been determined to exist, finds John Liu starring as John Liu, friendly boom operator for a local news team. John’s life takes a dark turn, however, when his pregnant girlfriend Nita is brutally murdered in broad daylight after witnessing a kidnapping. Vowing revenge, John dons a pure white ninja costume, taking to the streets and busting the heads of any hoodlums who cross his sight (he also apparently finds the time to have custom throwing stars made, helpfully emblazoned with the words “NY NINJA”; I would be very curious to know where he purchased these, and what their bulk rates are like). As John kicks and chops his way through the New York underground, however, he begins to realize that Nita’s murder may be connected to a sinister human trafficking ring, which in turn may be connected to a limo-riding serial killer in possession of a top-secret nuclear weapon. Can John avenge the death of his beloved, and will New York City come to love its new ninja protector?

As a critic, I feel obligated to make clear that, by any rational standard, New York Ninja is not what most people would traditionally call a “good” movie. Whether due to the circumstances of its production or a script that was half-baked even before it was lost to time, the story doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; characters and subplots are introduced and never mentioned again, or appear abruptly halfway through the film (I’m thinking specifically here of a scene around the midpoint in which John is rescued by a militia of child-ninjas to whom we have not previously been introduced). The dialogue is uniformly corny, and nobody acts very much like an actual human being. (I should probably also warn contemporary viewers that, as was standard for exploitation films of the period, there are at least half a dozen casually deployed scenes of sexual assault). Put it this way: if New York Ninja had been released in 1984 as planned, it’s unlikely that it would have given Amadeus a run for its money at the Oscars.

To reiterate, New York Ninja is not a good movie. But here’s the thing: New York Ninja is a fucking great movie. Despite its occasional seaminess, there is an innocence and sense of fun to this film that occasionally borders on childlike. The criminals, who number in the high dozens, all wear ridiculous outfits which give off major “stopped at the thrift store on the way to the costume party” vibes. Some wear Halloween masks; some wear ski masks; some wear ski goggles; a handful wear jock straps over their pants for some reason; several don fake mustaches and beards straight out of the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” video (my personal favorite might be the guy wearing a sweatshirt with the hood duct-taped around his head into a half-assed ninja mask). And even though he was unable to dub his own dialogue, Liu is an effervescent screen presence, thanks both to his easy grin and his truly estimable martial arts skills (when his film career fizzled, Liu followed in Bruce Lee’s footsteps and founded his own discipline, Zen Kwan Do). Anyone who’s ever stayed up late watching cheesy old action movies will find a lot to love here.

On the subject of the dubbing, I feel I should make it clear that this is not some What’s Up, Tiger Lily exercise in after-the-fact parody. Apart from a few silly moments of Popeye-esque self-narration (“Ow, he poked me in the eye!”), the voice cast plays it straight, delivering the often ridiculous dialogue earnestly in the spirit that it was most likely written (it probably helps that most of the voice-actors were themselves regularly burdened with far worse material in the ’80s). You will almost certainly laugh during New York Ninja— probably uncontrollably in a few parts– but never with the queasy-tinge that comes with self-conscious camp. If one didn’t know the circumstances of its production, one would probably have no idea that the current version of New York Ninja never graced the back shelves of some 1980s video store– which is probably the highest compliment one could possibly give to Spieler and his editors.

It is also, if nothing else, a fascinating document of the time and place in which it was shot. As Cramps frontman and trash film expert Lux Interior once said, the best way to see what the world was like at any point in the past century is to watch an exploitation film, whose producers couldn’t afford sets or costumes and had to work with their surrounding environment. Even a viewer who doesn’t buy into its slapdash brand of ninja goonery may find themselves riveted by New York Ninja‘s snapshot of pre-Giuliani New York City. Likely shooting without a permit, Liu and his crew capture some priceless footage of the Bronx and Hell’s Kitchen (in one amusing bit of postmodernism, Liu strolls past a 42nd Street grindhouse marquee advertising Ninja III: The Domination). New York is one of those cities which always looks good on film, and it’s thrilling to see a few new angles of it.

Would New York Ninja be a must-see film today had it been originally completed as planned? Perhaps not, outside of the perennial cult of junk-film completists and VHS fetishists. But its tortuous path to the screen is indeed something special. It stands as both a testament to the determination and dogged efforts of film preservationists, and as one last taste of a belovedly dopey subgenre. And if you can’t find something to love about a film which ends with a hip-hop video filled with people wearing “I (HEART) NY NINJA” t-shirts, then I’m frankly not sure I want to know you.

New York Ninja
1984/2021
dir. John Liu / Kurtis Spieler
93 min.

Opens Friday, 2/25 @ Somerville Theatre