New York Ninja, a wild martial arts action film originally directed by and starring John Liu, was shot entirely on 35mm in 1984. The project was abandoned shortly after shooting, and disappeared, resulting in all original sound materials, scripts and treatments going missing.
40 years later, the unedited original negatives were subsequently discovered by Vinegar Syndrome, who decided to meticulously reconstruct and complete the film themselves with no way of telling what the actors were originally saying, and no way to know what order the footage was meant to be in. To redub new dialogue, they enlisted the talents of genre film superstars Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Michael Berryman and Cynthia Rothrock to voice the leads.
The ninja craze of the 1980s is brought spectacularly back from the dead in a film that has an assured cult status before the first frame has even hit a screen. Ridiculous, convoluted, non-sensical and badly acted – New York Ninja is a must-see!
After the screening, we will be presenting the UK premiere of Re-Enter the New York Ninja, an accompanying look at where the film came from, its descent into oblivion and its unbelievable journey back to the big screen.
