George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park (1975) is not the only lost film that has been found, restored, and finally released this year. Because shot and abandoned in 1984, martial arts legend John Liu‘s wildly fun NYC-set ninja epic has been meticulously completed after nearly four decades and is about to land on Blu-Ray. Take a look at New York Ninja (2021).
In the movie, John (played by 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. 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?
Originally directed by and starring martial arts legend John Liu (Secret Rivals (1976), The Invincible Armour (1977), Made in China (1981), Dragon Blood (1982)) in his only American production, New York Ninja (2021) 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 camera negative and painstakingly constructed and completed the film.
Some action and horror icons like Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Linnea Quigley, Michael Berryman, Vince Murdocco, Matt Mitler, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Ginger Lynn Allen, and Cynthia Rothrock have provided their voices to complete the restored version of New York Ninja (2021).
The movie will be out on Blu-Ray on November 1st, 2021, and later will have a theatrical release in the first quarter of 2022. Watch here the official trailer for New York Ninja (2021).
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