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(tense synth music)
(energetic synth rock music)
(sword whipping)
(man groaning and screaming)
(fighters grunting)
(blade clanging)
(fighters groaning)
-Where'd he come from?
- Where did he go?
(dramatic music)
(gong crashing)
(people chattering)
(people laughing)
(traffic rumbling)
- Here we are on East Broadway in Chinatown, New York.
Right behind me is the former site
of the Sun Sing Movie Theater.
This is where a lot of classic martial arts movies premiered
in the late '60s and early '70s.
This was one of many theaters
that were in Chinatown at one time.
Further down on East Broadway used to be the Pagoda Theater,
Canal Street was the Canal Cinema,
then on Bowery, we had the Music Palace Theater,
which is now a Wyndham Garden Hotel.
Then right around the corner from that used to be
the Rosemary Theater, which is now a Buddhist temple.
All of these theaters are where John Liu's movies used
to play when they came to New York.
And when John Liu came to New York, he made New York Ninja,
and this is the story of that movie.
-Wah!
- Ugh!
(thudding)
- Kicking is a really big deal in Hong Kong movies.
And it's a big deal because there's a saying
in Chinese martial arts, "Northern leg, Southern fist,"
which means the Northern style martial arts have
a lot more kicking in them, it's a lot flashier.
The Southern styles, the kicking is low to the ground,
it's very close, and it's mostly focused on punching.
So, in Hong Kong, which is in Southern China,
a lot of the people who are trained in martial arts,
who wound up being action choreographers
and doing martial arts in movies, were Southern trained,
so they were mostly concentrated on fist styles.
(fists thudding)
(fighters groaning)
So, kicking was not super flashy.
So when you saw people pulling off super kicks
and these amazing high kicks and all this stuff,
it looked really, really good.
(kicks thudding)
(fighters groaning)
So, a lot of these super kickers from Korea,
these Korean Taekwondo guys,
came to Hong Kong to appear in movies.
You had people like Hwang Jang-lee,
who wound up being in two of Jackie Chan's early classics,
Snake in the Eagle's Shadow
and Drunken Master as the final boss.
Hwang In-shik, who was in two other
early classic Jackie Chan movies as the final boss,
Young Master and Dragon Lord.
Now, John Liu was Taiwanese.
He learned a bunch of different martial arts styles
from his grandfather, but he wanted to learn Taekwondo.
And he learned it from Tan Tao-liang,
this Korean Taekwondo guy who was actually
a really, really big deal in the world of Taekwondo.
The problem was, John Liu wasn't flexible enough
to pull off these kicks that Taekwondo required,
so essentially, Tan Tao-liang tortured him.
He made him stretch his legs and his groin muscles
for two years, basically, of sheer, unrelenting crotch hell.
(whooshing)
(eggshell cracking)
- Ahhh!
(whooshing)
(egg crunching)
- Ah!
- All kinds of really
sick, perverted, awful ways to stretch out his groin
so John Liu could do these really high, really intricate,
flat kicks with a lot of leg flexibility.
He could grab his leg and bring it right up
to his face so that he could kick people behind him.
And he always worked something interesting
into the films, like in Snuff Bottle Connection,
somebody is coming at him with a sword,
he pulls the sword away from the guy with his foot,
slashes him, and when he comes back around,
Liu stabs him right through the midsection with his foot.
- He made a few movies, but then he had this fateful meeting
with Ng See-yuen.
Ng See-yuen had a great eye for talent.
He was a producer and behind the scenes
for the most part, and he's the guy
who saw Jackie Chan being a Bruce Lee knockoff,
doing all these Bruce Lee knockoff movies
and all these really crummy, low budget films.
And Ng See-yuen teamed him up with Yuen Woo-ping,
another one of his discoveries, who was basically
a sort of standard issue action choreographer
with his brother.
We know Yuen Woo-ping now for the guy who did The Matrix
and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
and he spotted John Liu.
And he teamed up John Liu with Hwang Jang-lee,
this Korean Taekwondo guy and another super kicker,
and put them in a movie with Don Wong Tao
called Secret Rivals.
- Ah ha!
(feet shuffling)
(feet thudding)
(fighters grunting)
- Oh, oh, ugh.
(kicks thudding)
It was a really surprise hit.
Then, Don Wong Tao went on to do other movies,
The Hot, The Cool, and the Vicious,
he went away and did his thing.
But Hwang Jang-lee and John Liu stuck together
for Secret Rivals 2.
(dramatic music)
(fists thudding)
(fighters groaning)
(fist thudding)
- It's a more complicated story
than the first movie, but...
it really pays off in the fighting.
But I think a lot of people were disappointed
with Secret Rivals 2 because Don Wong wasn't in it,
so they brought him back for Death Duel of Kung Fu.
- Ayah!
(kicks thudding)
(whooshing)
- Yah!
- Ah!
(kicks thudding)
They made Invincible Armor, action choreographed
by Yuen Woo-ping.
(metallic grating)
(blade whooshing)
- Ah!
- Oh!
(chain clinking)
(bodies thudding)
And then, John Liu kept working,
but never again was he really, after he left Ng See-yuen,
making quite stuff at that same caliber,
with that same caliber of talent.
- There was a Hong Kong company called L&T Corporation,
and when the Kung Fu craze kicked in, in 1973, '74,
they started buying up martial arts movies.
They set up two companies in the United States,
one in Jacksonville called Ark Films in 1976,
and then they started another one
in California in 1981, called Unifilm International.
Sometimes, Ark would put the movie out first
and under a different title, and then a couple
of years later, Unifilm would re-release it
under a different title.
So, 2 Great Cavaliers, when that reached the US,
it was called Blade of Fury.
And then a couple of years later, when Unifilm had it,
The Sword and the Sorcerer had just come out
and it had been a surprise hit.
So, what's better than the Sword and the Sorcerer?
Two Swords and Two Sorcerers.
So, that was the re-release title.
- I think John Liu had to see less talented martial artists
in himself, people like Leo Fong,
stuff like that, making these headline movies
in the States, and I think he certainly saw a chance
to expand his market the way Jackie Chan was,
the way he'd seen Bruce Lee do it.
And he'd struck out on his own,
and he seems to have really valued total control,
because he was developing the movies themselves.
He was directing them.
I mean, Ninja in the Claws of the CIA,
he's playing two roles in it.
He had this vision of control,
but his movies weren't -- they don't seem
to have had the same backing, they don't seem
to have had the same budgets, and they don't seem
to have had the same behind the camera talent
as a lot of these other key people did.
- [Narrator] There's a man teaching
that technique right here in the United States.
His name is John Liu.
- Ninja in the Claws of the CIA makes a lot
of sense inside John Liu's head.
It's a movie where you can see the exploitable elements:
ninjas, CIA, you've got some footage
from a Danny Lee movie at the very, very beginning
that is unrelated from everything else.
You had a bunch of prop army costumes,
and then you had this sexploitation angle.
The movie is about the CIA recruiting John Liu
by pressuring his wheelchair-bound,
army veteran brother, played by John Liu,
who only talks to John Liu from the other side of a pool.
- I thought about what you told me last night.
You know how I feel about war.
I think you're going to have
to be the patriotic member of the family.
- John Liu gets recruited by the CIA
and then they study his techniques.
They have this kind of mind control thing going on.
- Please, you've got to stop it.
I can't stand this torture.
(man groaning)
- And then there's something to do
with NASA in there, I believe.
It's a little confusing.
(feet slapping)
(man groaning)
(kicks thudding)
(car horn honking)
And a lot of these guys had their own systems.
His teacher, Tan Tao-liang, had a system called "gecko."
- Hello!
- And "gecko" was not quite a martial arts system,
it was more like a way
to climb walls really fast using mostly your legs,
which Tan Tao-liang was good at,
because he had a lot of leg strength and flexibility.
Bruce Lee had Jeet Kune Do, and so John Liu had Zen Kwun Do.
I'm not sure exactly what Zen Kwun Do does,
but Zen Kwun Do Strikes in Paris is a movie filmed in Paris
and this is the one where he's got a relative
who's an astrophysicist who he has to rescue.
And again, he fights people in international locations.
(kicks thudding)
(fighters grunting)
(kicks thudding)
- Ahh!
-In 1976, there was an exhibition bout
in France, this was two years
after Chuck Norris had retired,
so it's not on his official record,
and it wasn't a competitive fight.
It wasn't judged; my understanding is
that they had the fight and then they left it up
to the crowd who the winner was,
and the loudest applause - or the louder applause was
for John Liu, so that worked its way
into the advertising of some of the movies
when L&T put out Zen Kwun Do Strikes in Paris,
this blew him up as a world karate champion,
as well as defeated Chuck Norris.
You're still reading about this today on the internet,
about John Liu beating Chuck Norris,
and it's based on, probably, these ads
or this press release that came out in 1979,
- Ha!
(kicks thudding)
- Oy!
- Ah!
(fighter groaning)
He did the one movie in Paris,
he made a movie in Mexico, and this was the time, now,
to come to New York and make a movie in New York.
(dramatic electronic music)
21st Century started out with foreign films
that they picked up for distribution.
One of their first releases was Three Fantastic Supermen,
which was an Italian action movie
that they kind of sold as a kids film.
They had a comic book artist do the poster
to appeal to kids who read comic books,
but it was mostly Kung Fu movies.
And so, in the early '80s,
when they started branching out
into more of the horror films,
New York Ninja was kind of a return
to the martial arts roots.
Also, Ninja was a big keyword at that time,
after the Cannon movies,
after the bestselling novel, The Ninja,
there was a real interest.
In 1984, it was kind of
the height of the ninja fever in the US.
There hadn't been any ninja movies filmed in New York,
and 21st Century was located in New York,
so it seemed like a good thing.
- New York Ninja?
- New York Ninja was a film that I created
with the idea in mind that we were doing extremely well
with martial arts films, and that we were also looking
for films that had a little bit of fantasy in it.
And New York Ninja was kind of a cross
between a comic book hero with a super ability
and a straightforward martial arts film.
We did have a very good actor in the name of John Liu,
who was credible to the martial arts fans.
- John Liu came in my office, I met him.
He was a good martial artist and he had a good look to him.
And he was a...
one of his favorites was Bruce Lee.
And he more or less had a Bruce Lee swagger.
- Our intentions all along were to give a very fine,
not quite the Hong Kong production,
but really, keeping within the reality
of what martial arts fans would want.
(thudding)
- Ah!
(whooshing)
(dramatic music)
-Who is that?
- I knew about John Liu because I was always
a big martial arts and Kung Fu movie fan,
but I didn't really know who he was
until -- and I think it was on TV -- Kung Fu Commandos,
and I loved that movie, I'm like,
this guy is amazing, they were kicking
and I was going crazy for a hon-Bruce Lee movie.
- Huh!
(kicks thudding)
- Ah!
(feet slapping)
(whooshing)
(kicks thudding)
I'd just come off the movie Silent Madness,
and it was really soon after that I got a call.
And it's like, oh, you worked on the Silent Madness,
the effects team, and I was like, yeah.
I mean, those guys were from LA.
They'd already left, they're back in LA, you know.
And they go, well, can you do this movie?
It's a low budget martial arts movie,
you probably never heard of the guy, John Liu.
And I was like, John Liu from Hong Kong?
And he was like, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, I would have worked on that film,
I would have paid to work on it just to meet John Liu.
- I had just finished a magazine show called Two on the Town
that I co-anchored, and it was the end of the run.
And my agent at the time started sending me out
on feature films, since I'm also an actress,
for reporter parts, not a long stretch.
- We were told that Rudy Ray Moore was going
to be in the movie, and I had, probably
at that time, I hadn't seen a Dolomite movie,
but I knew who Rudy Ray Moore was and had heard his records.
And that was a big deal. Wow, Rudy Ray Moore.
And it wasn't -- I think it was the first day
of the shoot they said, no, Rudy Ray Moore is not in it.
- Oh fuck, I ain't done nothing.
- I wasn't confident doing it as a solo gig
as an effects artist, so I called
in my friend John Bisson, who had helped me on my
NYU student films, and John Bisson was,
really, working and always experimenting,
wanted to be a makeup effects artist.
Years later, he would go to LA and join K&B
and work on some pretty big pictures.
So, I said, can you do this with me, should we do it?
And he was like, yeah, let's go check it out.
We went into a meeting, we met John Liu that night
and I was already a fan, and that was a big deal.
And half, I would say the majority
of the meeting, was just talking about Kung Fu movies.
We weren't charging anything, basically materials.
And it was still too much money.
And we were like, ah, how do we do this?
We couldn't have spent more than
a little over a hundred dollars,
I think, on the entire effects budget.
It's not like it was an effects heavy film.
They were doing a little bit
of blood effects here and there,
but they needed us mainly for this face peel.
(man screaming)
We were having a lot of difficulty understanding
what's this supposed to be, because they kept saying
it was like Mission Impossible, taking off the mask.
And we go, but yeah, they're never mutated underneath.
So, he wanted all this gooey, weird stuff under the mask.
We weren't clear about that, I didn't know
if the mask was supposed to be human skin
or a synthetic mask.
We pulled an all-nighter for that baking foam
and did all these different faces,
and they weren't coming out right.
And the next morning, we went to shoot the scene.
- I have to say that the villains were brilliantly cast,
because that Plutonium Killer, whatever special effects
they did with his face and him melting,
and his acting was really good.
- We did a scene where he mutates,
and his hands are like hot, and he brought his girlfriend
for that scene, and I remember,
she was pretty naked in a car,
and he puts his hands on her back.
(woman moaning)
(man groaning)
(woman panting and moaning)
And it leaves the burns on her back.
And we did that, gelatin burns on her back.
- Originally, I was a little concerned as a reporter,
because I thought there may have been nudity
or someone that did not have their clothes on,
and quite frankly, I didn't want
to be a part of that, you know?
And when they redid it, there was one scene with the girl,
but it was done very delicately and it wasn't salacious.
(woman groaning)
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I only worked maybe four or five days, scattered.
It was really cold weather, I remember that.
The crew was tiny, it was like six
or seven people on the shoot.
The first day I showed up, the cameraman was
someone I knew, his name was Steve Ning.
He ran a lot of the logistical stuff
like the equipment sign in and sign out,
the checkout for equipment at NYU graduate program,
that's how I knew him, and I'm like,
Steve, you're on this movie, oh my God.
That's crazy, do you know,
are you a fan of John Liu?
And he was like, yeah.
I don't think he'd ever heard of him,
but that was weird.
And then, the other shoot days, he wasn't there.
And tragically, Steve Ning died really young
soon after.
-I don't believe I even got a full script.
So, I got pages for my scene,
and it was abduction after abduction.
(woman groaning)
(thugs taunting)
- Stop it, get away from me.
- Ha!
- No.
- Where you going?
- Oh!
- And I'm like, John, can't I just be a news reporter?
But you know, it was funny, I mean,
that was the through line of the film.
- Hey sweetheart, you waiting for someone?
- A friend, I suppose.
- A friend, that's real nice.
- Brad, we're here.
- I also remember I took along a friend of mine,
my roommate, I was living in Hoboken at the time,
and he brought his still camera.
I go, come on, now you got to take pictures
of the effects I'm doing.
And they were like, oh, you have a camera?
We don't have a still photographer.
So he was taking all the pictures that day on the set.
And we actually did a couple of posed action shots
with John Liu and we were like, oh,
maybe we can use this for the poster.
There was nobody taking photos,
it was really super-guerrilla style film making.
- The biggest issue for me was the platinum blonde wig.
So, of course, I auditioned without a wig
and my agent didn't say anything about the wig.
And all of a sudden, the first day on the shoot,
John presents the wig, and I'm like, what?
And he said, no, no, no, for the European market,
you've got light eyes, they're very big on platinum blondes.
And 50, you're going to wear the wig.
I thought, oh, okay, and then the wig became my life.
- I always kept telling her, talk to him,
tell him to get rid of the wig,
because she had perfectly nice, dark, black hair.
Every time I saw her, I was just like, oh my God.
I felt so sorry for her having to wear that wig.
- John was an interesting guy,
and he was kind of hard to read at times.
And in hindsight, I think it's because he wore so many hats.
He was director, producer, the choreographer
of the all the martial arts.
And so, he kind of warmed up as the process went on.
- He knew exactly what he was doing.
He was probably the only person that knew what was going on.
And I was surprised at how laid back and how nice he was.
Anyone could talk to him and he would just stop,
and you could talk about anything and ask him questions.
I mean -- it was weird,
because I would never do that today,
but I was so young and so in awe of him,
we talked about everything.
- His kicks were big, I mean, they were pretty awesome.
And he had not one inch of body fat.
There is a scene where he's in the water
and he looks like a child, he's so fit and thin.
And he was great, actually, working with the kids.
There were some kids in the movie
and that's where I saw his empathy and his warmth
and the heart of John come through.
- Will you be my friend?
- I think it was John Liu
and his girlfriend, basically, ran the production
out of their hotel room.
We never went through permits like
New York City mayor's office or anything like that.
They just found a few places to shoot,
they got permission to shoot there.
I remember once we were in a warehouse,
I think sometimes we were in Staten island,
just fields, empty lots, that nobody bothered us.
My big hope was, oh, I want to see
how they choreograph a Kung Fu film in Hong Kong.
I thought it would be
a textbook example of how they shoot.
I never really saw any extended fight scenes.
I remember he did a crazy stunt
where he was being dragged by a car,
and he just put a piece of cardboard down.
I was like, oh my God, you're gonna die.
(dramatic music)
(man panting)
(man groaning)
(car roaring)
- I think when he started his martial arts scenes,
it was like he was in his element.
So, he just was happy and excited,
and I marveled at some of these scenes,
they were incredible.
- I can't believe it.
- Keep filming.
(dramatic music)
(whooshing)
(fighter grunting)
(kicks thudding)
- Then it was just over, it was like,
we never got called back, I never knew what happened.
This was maybe...could have been weeks later,
going with my friend, my roommate.
And we go to a club in New York and we run
into John Liu and the whole cast
and crew, and they were like, oh,
we're having the wrap party, come on up.
And they had a room up there and we hung out that night.
And John Liu, I think it was the next day,
he was leaving for Paris.
- We'll see his face soon enough.
- 21st Century asked me, would you like
to see some of the dailies on it?
And also, you're going to help us
with the trailer and the ad campaign.
So, Joe Zwick worked for me,
and Joe Zwick and Fran were the producers on New York Ninja.
So, they ran up bills with it
and 21st Century wasn't covering the expenses
towards the end of the shooting production.
- Okay, okay, I'll get you money soon.
- So, I think they backed out of it.
- Unfortunately, New York Ninja suffered
from terrible timing.
I was leaving the company and I don't think
that once I left, the company, anybody, continued
to fund or complete the film.
- I did a promotional moment for the movie
on Regis's show, I used to produce his show
in California, and I taught him how to be a ninja.
And he came out, wrapped in the garb
that John wore, and I was in all black.
And Regis had a good time.
- I did not see the film again
for another eight or nine years,
when it was an asset in the bankruptcy of 21st Century.
So, I did at one time possess the unfinished film,
but never, never knew what we had,
and never invested further in the contents of the film.
- I was working in distribution at Troma in Hell's Kitchen,
and we got a package of stuff in from --
it was 21st Century, but it was the new 21st Century
with Ami Artzi from Cannon Group,
and they had New York Ninja playing
on the monitor in the office.
So, I walk into Lloyd Kaufman's office
and I'm like, what is this?
Oh, it's an unfinished movie.
They want us to finish it.
I'm like, I worked on this film, this is New York Ninja.
We were watching this video,
and I guess they talked to them, and even Troma felt like
there just wasn't enough there to make a complete movie.
(eerie synth music)
- New York Ninja was acquired as a part
of a larger collection of the 21st Century distribution.
- When we were putting together the contracts
to acquire the library, obviously a big part
of putting together the contract is the film list.
What's included in all the films and film assets.
So, we had a pretty extensive list.
So, when we went to pick up the film materials
from IWC, along comes this pallet that was --
all these boxes are labeled New York Ninja.
So, Arthur was there,
so I said, Arthur, what is this New York Ninja?
That's not on the list.
He's like, oh, you don't have to take that.
No, you can just -- I'll have them throw it away.
So I said, no, no, no.
- We're preservationists at heart, film preservationists.
And for those reasons we could never,
never throw away a film, even if it was unfinished.
There's always value to it.
(reel grinding)
(door creaking)
(eerie music)
- My introduction to New York Ninja actually came
with my first day working at Vinegar Syndrome.
And on my very first day at work,
I was getting a tour of the archive
by our film scanner, Brandon Up son,
and he was showing me the movies
and showing me what the film archive was like,
and there was a ton of movies in there.
There was a cardboard box labeled New York Ninja.
And he pointed that out to me and said,
to his knowledge, it was an unfinished movie
that was shot at some point in the '80s,
and they never edited it together and never finished it.
And so, I said, well, I would be interested in doing that,
putting the film back together at some point.
- And over the years, when we went to go try
and look it up, there was no information about it at all.
- At that point, he told me that
all the sound elements had been lost over time.
So, I knew no matter what, that would be a big undertaking.
- There was no script,
there's no credits, there's no call sheets.
There's nothing, we just had picture.
- So, once Ryan and Ralph agreed
to let me work on this project,
the very first thing we had to do was scan the film.
Because at this point, we had all gotten very excited
about the idea of putting this movie back together,
but nobody had seen a single frame of footage.
We had no idea what kind of movie it was.
- When we started scanning it
and actually seeing the footage for the first time,
that's when we, we all kind of had a smile on our faces.
- It was like we struck gold at that point.
- This was something that...it's exactly the kind of,
material we go after.
The action.
(dramatic music)
(kicks thudding)
(men groaning)
- It had a little bit of campiness.
- Why?!
Why?!
- The 42nd Street footage of the '80s,
just New York in the '80s, back then.
And from that moment forward,
it was all-in on the project.
- We had many hours of footage, so it was
a process to scan it all in.
And in fact, because of our busy schedule
at Vinegar Syndrome, we had to kind of work it
into the schedule of when this was all going to be scanned.
- These things take time, Mr. Liu.
We're doing everything we can, okay?
Just be patient.
- One of my first, I guess, jobs
for the film, was trying to find John Liu.
- Good luck.
- And eventually, going through numerous cast members,
I found this one younger gentleman
who kept appearing in credits,
or extras, or anything like that.
And he was still around, he was in the UK.
- That gives us all hope.
- I messaged him and I said,
my name's Brad, I work for this company Vinegar Syndrome.
We're trying to find out what happened
with John Liu.
John Liu was still alive, he lived in Vietnam
and he basically lived or lives in a shack,
a boat shack on the water, with no electricity,
let alone a phone or a computer.
And eventually, he knew of a friend of John's
that would visit from time to time,
I think he said every three months or whatever.
That he would go and ask him for me
to see what he has to say.
And after waiting for, I forget how long,
maybe a month, two months, we finally heard back.
John obviously did not want to be involved
with the project whatsoever,
and kind of gave us a good luck blessing.
-You know, he had a reputation for being difficult,
and I think maybe the people
that were financially supporting the film had a conflict
with John, and I don't know the issues or the details,
but I hope he's well. I hope he's enjoying his life.
- For some reason, it seems like
I'm the only living person dared talk
about the making of his movies,
so many people don't want to be involved.
- Now you focus on your job, okay?
- Absolutely.
- There was a lot of times where it seemed
like they had started scenes that weren't finished.
So, I had to go through this footage
and determine what scenes were finished,
which ones weren't, and then hope
that we just had everything that they had done.
And once I had all the scenes laid out,
I laid them out in a rough cut,
so in the order of which they were on the slate.
And when I did that, honestly, the movie made no sense.
- With New York Ninja, we had the ability
to make some creative choices
that we never would make otherwise.
- So, once we had made the decision
to create our own movie out of it,
the hard part really came to keeping the tone
of the original, while sort of creating a new movie.
- I know Kurtis and I were very much
on the same page of like, let's just play it straight.
Let's be incredibly respectful to the source material.
Let's pretend we're making this movie in 1984,
-What had made easier for me is
now I could edit the film any way I wanted, okay?
The hard part was I was going to have
to write a script for the movie,
because, now I'm moving scenes out of order,
who knows what they're saying?
And if we even bring somebody in to read the lips,
now it's going to be a mess, you know?
So, basically, the idea came that,
because this was basically a Kung Fu
or martial arts film, it would kind of make sense
to just dub the voices anyway we wanted, you know?
So, it didn't matter if the mouths matched up
with what was being said, because it would just kind of add
to the charm of films from that era.
- You're one of the best damned reporters
and this city needs you, it's important.
-We knew in January of 2020, we were going
to have to start with casting.
We knew it would be a big process,
to not only dub all these voices,
but there's all the small characters,
plus all the sound design.
- We went through many, many names, who would be best?
- As we kept progressing in our conversations,
we thought, really, the most fun would probably be
to cast actors from other films
that Vinegar Syndrome had already put out, so it's kind of
what we called the Vinegar Syndrome Universe.
- And I think it was Justin La Liberty
who mentioned Don "The Dragon" Wilson.
And we were very, very excited about that.
- Prior to that, we had not released one of his movies.
Luckily for us, at the time, we were starting
to get into early '90s action films,
and we ended up acquiring a Don "The Dragon" film.
And at that point, we were like,
okay, well, he's gotta be our guy.
He was in a lot of movies
with Cynthia Rothrock back in the day,
so, we thought he would be a great for the part.
- I remember my agent called me and said,
what you guys were asking me to do,
and I said, gosh, I've never done anything like that.
ADR an entire film of a performance
that was not my performance?
- We're doing what we can.
- That's it, that's all you can tell me?
My wife is dead and you're telling me to wait?
These men murdered her because of what she saw.
- That added another level of difficulty for me,
because, instead of just having to match my lips,
I have to match the performance of the other actor.
You know, the inflections and where his emphasis was
and things, because I'm trying
to match his physical body and his expressions.
You know, I want to give his same performance.
And it was very difficult, and I hope I did him --
- Justice.
- It's not the way I would've played it.
It's not the way I would've played it.
Now, and I know, it's called over-the-top.
I believe he was going,
what I would consider, beyond the call of duty
in his expressions and in his emphasis.
- Why? Why is this happening?
And why won't anyone do anything?
I don't understand.
(dramatic music)
Why?
(John panting)
Why?
Why?!
- Really?
Not this.
- What's the problem?
Are you jealous?
- Cynthia Rothrock, I think we're all fans
of Cynthia Rothrock, she's super bad ass,
and if you're going to have a martial arts film
with any female characters, we had to get her.
- I've known Cynthia Rothrock since the mid
to early '80s, because we know each other
through martial arts.
Actually, she's got her black belt in Kung Fu
in the same style I studied, Pai Lum Kung Fu,
which is really a coincidence,
because it's a small style of Kung Fu.
- Don is a really good friend of mine.
One of my best friends, and we've done probably
about seven or eight movies together.
And usually, if I'm involved in a project,
then Don will say, they say, oh yeah, Cynthia is doing it.
Then he'll go, okay, I'll do it.
Or someone will say, hey, Don is going to do it.
Okay, I'll do it, like, for this one
when I heard, oh yeah, Don is going to be the voice.
I'm like, okay, great, yeah, we'll have a lot of fun.
(blade whooshing)
(metallic clanking)
- Ah, thank you.
- Detective, get the other girls out of here.
I'm gonna go for your partner.
- Some people find doing voice over is hard,
but I actually find it pretty easy.
And usually they'll say, oh yeah,
we're going to use you for three hours
and I'll be done in 45 minutes.
And I think it's just a different art.
It's looking at what you're doing
and just trying to match the lips to what you're saying.
New York Ninja was a little different,
because we really didn't know what they were saying.
- So, what do you want from me?
- Call me with the autopsy report.
- You know what it's going to be.
- My very first time I did a voice over was
for a movie I did in Indonesia.
And the sound was horrible throughout the whole thing.
And then they come about a year later
to LA and they say, we want you to do some ADR.
Well, I've never done it before, so I'm like, okay.
And they were like,
well, you just hear the three beeps and then you talk.
So we get there, and I'm standing there,
and they start playing it and I'm looking around.
Well, what do you want me to do?
And he goes, well, say the lines.
I said, but where are they, I don't know what the lines are.
He goes, well, we lost the script,
you don't know what you said?
This is like a year later, and I'm like,
no, I don't know what I said.
So, we had to guess what that could have been,
what we could have been saying.
It was almost kind of like New York Ninja. (laughs)
- Is everyone okay?
- Yeah, we're good.
- Let's go.
(girls moaning)
- Everyone in the van, let's move it.
- Leon Isaac Kennedy, that was a big one.
He hadn't done a lot of acting recently.
So, that was fun to go back and get an actor
who maybe hasn't really done a lot in a long time.
- I've got a problem.
Well, remember when you first came to me?
I wanted to tell you that I found the guys
that killed your wife.
- I have something to tell you and it can't wait.
- Well, what is it?
- I'm pregnant.
- We knew we wanted to get in
the adult industries, since obviously,
we've released some adult films.
Ginger Lynn came up first and, you know,
she was a blessing to work with.
(melancholy synth music)
- John, I'm here for you.
I just heard what happened to you.
Please, John, you have to try and pull yourself together.
- Linnea was always a part of it.
It was just automatic,
let's get Linnea, we love Linnea.
- What amazed me, when I saw the final product, was --
the actress they hired to do my voice,
I was convinced it was me.
I said, oh, you found the sound for my parts.
And she was absolute perfection.
I mean, it sounded like my voice.
- Thank you for coming with me.
I really do appreciate that.
- At your service.
- Oh, wow, just look at you.
- Listen, I got to run.
- Okay.
- I'll see you back at the office.
Unless you want to take a shower together.
- One of the big things was Jack the cameraman.
We really weren't sure what direction
to go with, as far as a voice.
-Vince Murdocco, who was also in a lot of movies
with Cynthia Rothrock and Don "The Dragon,”
he was just in a movie that we released called LA Wars,
and it did really well for us,
and people really seem to like that movie.
We were like, okay, we got to get Vince Murdocco in here.
- Shit, who does he think I am, huh?
I bust ass my all over this whole fucking city.
- Matt Mitler, that was a really fun one.
That was actually more of a personal choice for me.
I'm a big fan of the movie that we put out,
Battle for the Lost Planet, and its sequel, Mutant Wars.
And actually, Ryan and I were talking
about who we would cast
for the character called Freddy Cufflinks.
And we had kind of joked around
about the idea of casting Matt Mitler,
but we found out that he actually did voice work,
which was awesome, so we contacted him
and he did a really great job.
He's actually one of the few that really did
what I would say is "a voice,"
he gave the character an actual voice.
- I'll have things ready.
- Also, that reporter is starting to get too close.
You and your men have been sloppy.
Bring her to me.
- The toughest one was the Plutonium Killer,
just because we knew it would be vocally demanding.
- We needed a heavy that could really carry the film.
And the Plutonium Killer has a sort of a unique look
and a unique personality, I mean,
he's very much over-the-top.
But we needed an actor
that could handle going over-the-top,
but could also not make it too much of a joke.
- And eventually, I said, what about Michael Berry man?
And no one was against it, it was just,
it wasn't one of those lights came on
and everybody jumped, it was more or less,
I think people took a step back.
- I was a little hesitant at the time,
because I think, when you think of Michael Berry man,
you have a very specific image of him.
We all know him as Pluto in The Hills Have Eyes
and in all these monstrous roles that he plays.
- So, I actually went and watched some of his interviews
and actually tried to just watch him
and see how he was as a person, and remove him
from his characters, and honestly,
I just closed my eyes and listened to him
and imagined him as the Plutonium Killer.
And after that, I think I called Brad, and I was like,
yeah, I think Michael Berry man's our guy.
Let's give him a shot.
- I need some time.
It's not that simple to arrange.
- I understand, but my clientele is very hungry now.
(wine slurping)
- Trust me when I say
that your clientele will be so pleased.
- I saw my character as shrewd,
untrustworthy, selfish, arrogant,
and he thought he was really, really clever.
- He had just the right amount of humor
to play the part, as well as to have
that voice that is intimidating.
-To do an entire film and go through
the roller coaster of emotions of the character,
and the arcs of the character,
he seems to be in control,
and then later on, he's frustrated.
He's trying to please the overlords.
It was challenging.
It was imaginative and I had a lot of fun with it.
(ominous music)
- Oh.
Oh.
(Plutonium Killer groaning)
- It was just me doing the performance in my office.
So, as an obstacle, it was -- I saw the obstacles more
as a challenge, it was a very limited set.
(Michael laughing)
So to speak, we didn't even have craft service.
(Michael laughing)
I did take a break for lunch, though.
(eerie music)
- (Plutonium Killer breathing heavily)
Oh.
- The score for this movie is amazing,
and I have to give all the credit to VOYAG3R for that.
The way we ended up coming across them is,
we were trying to find a band
that we knew would work for this type of movie.
We wanted to find -- there's a lot of bands these days
that are doing kind of this
synth, '80s kind of music.
They're almost making soundtracks
for movies that don't exist.
How many of them actually get to do a score
for a real '80s movie?
Steve got super excited about this, he did some research.
He watched some John Liu films and tried
to grab little sounds or music cues
from some other John Liu movies, and I just remember,
I was super excited to hear the score.
- Ah!
(intense electronic rock music)
(boots clunking)
- There was no temp tracks, there was no nothing.
They just had silent picture to work off of.
And I gave them my script, so that they could kind of tell
what tone we were going for.
But they just nailed it.
(children cheering)
(upbeat music)
- Well, that's it.
- I am just super excited to see
where the movie goes from here.
Like any movie, you hope
that the fans enjoy it and recognize it
for what it is, but this one is unique.
I really can't think of any other movie
that's been done like this before.
- It was like a movie being born in front of our eyes.
- It's pretty mind blowing when you see the finished product
to what we had to start with,
because the one that we had the start with,
we were like, oh, well this,
who knows what can come out of this?
But it really worked out together.
- So, it's a missing piece in the puzzle
of John Liu's career and probably one
he doesn't want filled in,
but I think we need to know about it.
The world needs to know about New York Ninja.
- Actually hope he watches it.
I think it will be a tribute to his work,
to his effort, to his commitment,
to doing something and wearing so many hats.
-When I first started looking
at the footage of New York Ninja, I thought instantly,
this has to be screened theatrically.
It's such a great,
group film.
- I would go see that movie, an old movie,
just for the voices of martial art people
or other actors that were in on this.
- Like any film from that time,
the '80s genre,
there's parts of it that are hilarious.
It's a wonderful film.
- I think people will enjoy it for being a throwback,
for the humor, and have fun.
- I would be delighted if someone watched this,
that didn't see this documentary,
didn't know the back story, and watched it, and be like,
hey, I've discovered this crazy movie from the '80s.
- I'm so glad that it's finally coming out
for an audience to see.
I couldn't be happier to be the one
who kind of facilitated this whole thing.
I really hope that people enjoy it,
and I hope everybody out there loves it as much as I do.
(John chuckling)
(upbeat synth rock music)
X Out in the streets X
X The fire's burning X
X Burning burning X
X How can a righteous man expect to survive X
X They pushed him too far X
X Now the tables are turning X
X He's not going to stand and watch X
X And let the darkness thrive X
X It's almost too late X
X His vengeance won't wait X
X This town needs a hero X
X Calling out for something more X
X A hero X
X Standing tall to win the war for justice X
X Justice justice X
- Go out there, New York Ninja!
(crew laughing)
Be free!
(funky music)