New York Ninja

Anyone else seen this? Watched it last month and keep thinking about it. The backstory of the movie is pretty great.

Basically, some folks shot a cheesy ninja movie in the 80’s, but before it went into editing the company that owned the rights to the movie went out of business.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago, and. Vinegar Syndrome, a company that specializes in restoring and distributing cult movies shot on film, bought the rights to the movies that company made. While digging through their warehouse, they found a bunch of cans of footage, which turned out to be New York Ninja, that cheesy movie that shot in the 80’s.

However, the movie had no sound shot with it at all, only footage. And they had no script, no storyboards, nothing. So Vinegar Syndrome looked at the footage, edited it together into some kind of narrative, wrote a script based on their edit (and lip reading), hired actors to dub the movie, and hired a synth band to create the OST.

So it’s basically a movie that was made twice, and the resulting product is a lot of fun and pretty amusing, if you like that kind of thing. Which I’m assuming you probably do, since you hang out on MST3K forums.

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I heard about it thru Red Letter Media and it’s on my to-watch list

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I heard about it on Len Kabasinski’s Forgotten Movie Den.
It’s an amazing movie and a brilliantly painstaking restoration - surely a must-riff for MST3K or RiffTrax in the future.
Some beloved B-movie talent provided the Vinegar Syndrome voice-overs too, like Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Linnea Quigley, Cynthia Rothrock and Michael Berryman.

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I read that there were no credits included with the reels. I wonder if anyone who was part of the project has come forward since it was finished.

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I’ve been curious about that too! The end of the movie had a really sweet message to the original creators - as far as I know they couldn’t find anyone really involved in the original production before the release. I hope some of them do eventually hear the good news lol.

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On IMDB, I think they only credit John and Nita Liu from the original production. I’m sure, as this release gets out there, we’ll see a few more names put their hands up for recognition.

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Seen the name, but had not heard (or paid attention to) any details.

Definitely something to be on the watch radar.

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I should have posted the trailer in the OP, but this will give you an idea of flavor.

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I believe the original director wanted nothing to do with it. Heh.

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I heard of this as it was recommended by Stewart Wellington on The Flop House. Elliott Kalan is one of the other hosts.

Stu made it sound fantastic.

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He’s no Chris Farley.

Little Richard GIF

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