Stars: Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, John Liu, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Linnea Quigley, Ginger Lynn, Cynthia Rothrock, Michael Berryman | Directed by John Liu, Kurtis Spieler
The story behind New York Ninja is almost as incredible as the film itself. In 1984 Taiwanese martial artist and actor John Liu came to New York City with the intention of filming his latest movie there. While he did shoot it, he was so unimpressed by the results he abandoned the project and left the unedited footage in a vault and retired from filmmaking. An there it sat for thirty-five years later the footage came into the hands of film restoration specialists Vinegar Syndrome. They had the technology, they could rebuild it, all except for one critical element. The film’s soundtrack was missing, as was the script.
So they wrote a new one, not a spoof but authentic-sounding 80s style dialogue. And they hired a...
The story behind New York Ninja is almost as incredible as the film itself. In 1984 Taiwanese martial artist and actor John Liu came to New York City with the intention of filming his latest movie there. While he did shoot it, he was so unimpressed by the results he abandoned the project and left the unedited footage in a vault and retired from filmmaking. An there it sat for thirty-five years later the footage came into the hands of film restoration specialists Vinegar Syndrome. They had the technology, they could rebuild it, all except for one critical element. The film’s soundtrack was missing, as was the script.
So they wrote a new one, not a spoof but authentic-sounding 80s style dialogue. And they hired a...
- 11/9/2021
- by Jim Morazzini
- Nerdly
The comedian and former The Daily Show correspondent talks about his favorite Blaxploitation movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Casablanca (1942) – John Landis’s trailer commentary
The Castle (1997)
The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973) – Bill Duke’s trailer commentary
Pressure (1976)
Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary
Boss (1975)
Django Unchained (2012) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary
The Thing With Two Heads (1972) – Stuart Gordon’s trailer commentary
The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)
The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)
Black Samurai (1977)
Truck Turner (1974)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Black Caesar (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary
Hell Up In Harlem (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary
Judas And The Black Messiah (2021)
Friday Foster (1975)
That Man Bolt (1973)
Blacula (1972)
Foxy Brown (1974) – Jack Hill’s trailer commentary
Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976)
Willie Dynamite (1973) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Billy Jack (1971)
John Wick (2014)
The Matrix (1999)
Cleopatra Jones...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Casablanca (1942) – John Landis’s trailer commentary
The Castle (1997)
The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973) – Bill Duke’s trailer commentary
Pressure (1976)
Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary
Boss (1975)
Django Unchained (2012) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary
The Thing With Two Heads (1972) – Stuart Gordon’s trailer commentary
The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)
The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)
Black Samurai (1977)
Truck Turner (1974)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Black Caesar (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary
Hell Up In Harlem (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary
Judas And The Black Messiah (2021)
Friday Foster (1975)
That Man Bolt (1973)
Blacula (1972)
Foxy Brown (1974) – Jack Hill’s trailer commentary
Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976)
Willie Dynamite (1973) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Billy Jack (1971)
John Wick (2014)
The Matrix (1999)
Cleopatra Jones...
- 8/17/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
I will never profess to be well learned in the ways of the Blaxploitation genre, but if there was ever a time to dive right into it it will be this July on VOD. Xenon Pictures (Straight Outta Compton) is releasing a lineup of remastered Blaxploitation titles next month on most VOD platforms, a dozen in all. Next month we can watch Sweet Sweetback, Dolemite, The Human Tornado, Disco Godfather, Petey Wheatstraw, Welcome to Death Row, The Muthers, Blackenstein, Penitentiary, Penitentiary II, Death Force and Lord Shango. You should be able to find these titles on major players like iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and more. Below we have nearly every trailer for each release and some promotional images as well. Enjoy, suckas! ...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 6/22/2018
- Screen Anarchy
I will never profess to be well learned in the ways of the Blaxploitation genre, but if there was ever a time to dive right into it it will be this July on VOD. Xenon Pictures (Straight Outta Compton) is releasing a lineup of remastered Blaxploitation titles next month on most VOD platforms, a dozen in all. Next month we can watch Sweet Sweetback, Dolemite, The Human Tornado, Disco Godfather, Petey Wheatstraw, Welcome to Death Row, The Muthers, Blackenstein, Penitentiary, Penitentiary II, Death Force and Lord Shango. You should be able to find these titles on major players like iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and more. Below we have nearly every trailer for each release and some promotional images as well. Enjoy, suckas! ...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 6/22/2018
- Screen Anarchy
You've never seen boxing movies quite like this pair from the late Jamaa Fanaka. 1979's Penitentiary and 1982's Penitentiary II may be worlds apart in terms of budget and execution, but both bear the mark of an artist struggling to shape his revolutionary ideals into entertaining cinema and he managed to do so pretty well, at least in the case of the first film. A couple of years ago Connecticut based indie home video label Vinegar Syndrome announced a deal partnering them with Xenon Films to release a number of classic black action films including the major works of Rudy Ray Moore, along with the available films of Fanaka. This is the first output from Fanaka as part of that deal and it all looks...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 4/24/2018
- Screen Anarchy
Those of a certain generation, will most likely remember actor/producer Leon Isaac Kennedy. While one can rightly say that he never achieved A-list status, he definitely had quite a run from the late 70’s to the early 90’s, and gained a following after his lead role as Too Sweet in the "Penitentiary" film trilogy, directed by the late Jamma Fanaka (for disclosure’s sake, I worked on the first one), "Body and Soul," "Lone Wolf McQuade" with Chuck Norris, and a host of TV roles. But some 20 years ago, as Kennedy said himself, “I knew I needed to look deeper and find a higher purpose for my life. I heard ‘the calling;’” and he left acting to become a...
- 11/9/2014
- by Sergio
- ShadowAndAct
The Chicago screenings of the touring L.A. Rebellion Film Series starts, in earnest, next week, until June 7, with Jamaa Fanaka’s 1976 film Emma Mae next Thursday April 25th. Made before Fanaka’s Penitentiary film trilogy, Emma Mae, which was shot in 1974, towards the tail end of the “Blaxploitation” era, is a true rarity which definitely does not fit the mold of the usual films of the era. Telling the story of a young, naïve country girl who comes to L.A. and who is lead astray by corrupting evil influences, the film doesn’t follow the usual conventional morality play with Emma being led on the path to ruin. It is, instead, a genuine feminist self-empowerment film about...
- 4/19/2013
- by Sergio
- ShadowAndAct
Well, this is caps off a pretty sucky Monday:
Jamaa Fanaka, director of 1979 indie hit Penitentiary, has died. He was 69 years old.
Penitentiary was something of a forefather to the indie black cinema movement, completed in fact when Fanaka was in film school at UCLA. The director’s death is said to be diabetes-related.
Penitentiary is the story of Martel “Too Sweet” Gordone, played by Leon Issac Kennedy, who is somewhat unjustly imprisoned for murdering a biker. Gordone joins the prison boxing team and fights in a tournament in a bid to obtain an early release. In his way are a litany of awesomely named foes and the usual prison flick departmental corruption.
The film is cheap and nasty, but seriously, check these character names, arguably the finest of any Blaxploitation film ever:
Sweetpea
Seldom Seen
Half-Dead
Poindexter
Cheese
Magilla Gorilla
That’s some good stuff right there.
I picked...
Jamaa Fanaka, director of 1979 indie hit Penitentiary, has died. He was 69 years old.
Penitentiary was something of a forefather to the indie black cinema movement, completed in fact when Fanaka was in film school at UCLA. The director’s death is said to be diabetes-related.
Penitentiary is the story of Martel “Too Sweet” Gordone, played by Leon Issac Kennedy, who is somewhat unjustly imprisoned for murdering a biker. Gordone joins the prison boxing team and fights in a tournament in a bid to obtain an early release. In his way are a litany of awesomely named foes and the usual prison flick departmental corruption.
The film is cheap and nasty, but seriously, check these character names, arguably the finest of any Blaxploitation film ever:
Sweetpea
Seldom Seen
Half-Dead
Poindexter
Cheese
Magilla Gorilla
That’s some good stuff right there.
I picked...
- 4/16/2012
- by Cameron Ashley
- Boomtron
As a tribute to the passing of the late Jamaa Fanaka, I've decided to put this pending review of Penitentiary from Arrowdrome on the fast track. Fanaka was a rebel who made his films his way, and perhaps no film better exemplifies that adventurous spirit and search for truth quite like the first Penitentiary film. Made while Fanaka was still a film student, Penitentiary may be his most personal film, the one with the most to say about the state of African American men in the late '70s, and as such, it has a ring of truth and a power that evades most run of the mill blaxploitation films from the '70s.While Penitentiary often gets lumped into the blaxploitation genre, there is enough to differentiate...
- 4/5/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Nice cover for the new issue of Cahiers du Cinéma, which features a collection of articles (all of them offline) on Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt. There's a new Brooklyn Rail out as well, and we've already noted Monica Westin's interview with Geoff Dyer in today's roundup on Andrei Tarkovsky and Paul Felten's review of Damsels in Distress in another roundup on Whit Stillman. In terms of strictly film-related pieces (and let's hope you don't confine yourself to those!), that leaves Troy Swain's graphic celebration of the upcoming series at Anthology Film Archives, The Films of Carmelo Bene, running April 26 through 29, and Donal Foreman's interview with Nicole Brenez.
The occasion for the interview was the series Brenez curated for Anthology last month, Internationalist Cinema for Today (there was a roundup at the time) and Foreman writes a terrific introduction:
In an essay on Adorno's relationship with cinema, Nicole Brenez...
The occasion for the interview was the series Brenez curated for Anthology last month, Internationalist Cinema for Today (there was a roundup at the time) and Foreman writes a terrific introduction:
In an essay on Adorno's relationship with cinema, Nicole Brenez...
- 4/4/2012
- MUBI
Back at the end of October, our friends at Arrow Video sent over a special preview of their upcoming 2012 DVD and Blu-ray releases, and now they’ve sent us more details on two of those titles – the Arrow Video Blu-ray release of Red Scorpion and the Arrowdrome DVD release of Penitentiary and Cat O’Nine Tails.
Red Scorpion (Arrow Video) Blu-ray
Taught To Stalk. Trained To Kill. Programmed To Destroy.
Dolph Lundgren is Nikolai – a killing machine – a deadly, highly skilled agent for the Russian army whose brutal efficiency and single minded determination to serve the motherland leaves behind a trail of battered bodies and bloodied enemies. Now Nikolai must infiltrate an African rebel army who seek to defy their new communist rulers and take out their leader, but as he gets to know his enemies and the dignified Bushmen he encounters, he begins to slowly realize that all he...
Red Scorpion (Arrow Video) Blu-ray
Taught To Stalk. Trained To Kill. Programmed To Destroy.
Dolph Lundgren is Nikolai – a killing machine – a deadly, highly skilled agent for the Russian army whose brutal efficiency and single minded determination to serve the motherland leaves behind a trail of battered bodies and bloodied enemies. Now Nikolai must infiltrate an African rebel army who seek to defy their new communist rulers and take out their leader, but as he gets to know his enemies and the dignified Bushmen he encounters, he begins to slowly realize that all he...
- 11/25/2011
- by Phil
- Nerdly
Jamaa Fanaka’s raw and violent indictment of prison life is a masterpiece of Urban Cinema and was the most successful independent film of 1980. A potent combination of "blaxploitation", prison film and social commentary, Penitentiary busted genres and galvanised audiences from the art houses to the inner city, becoming the cornerstone of urban independent film for generations to come.
Martel Gordone ( Leon Isaac Kennedy) is a Hitchhiker who gets into a fight with a pair of bikers over a prostitute. One of the biker dies and Martel finds himself in prison with the moniker ‘ too sweet’ because of his love of candy bars. Soon, he is a hardened but pragmatic inmate who joins the prison boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole. Standing in his path however is ‘Half Dead Johnson’, a member of the prison’s most violent gang.
www.arrowfilms.co.uk
Read More
tags: blaxploitation,...
Martel Gordone ( Leon Isaac Kennedy) is a Hitchhiker who gets into a fight with a pair of bikers over a prostitute. One of the biker dies and Martel finds himself in prison with the moniker ‘ too sweet’ because of his love of candy bars. Soon, he is a hardened but pragmatic inmate who joins the prison boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole. Standing in his path however is ‘Half Dead Johnson’, a member of the prison’s most violent gang.
www.arrowfilms.co.uk
Read More
tags: blaxploitation,...
- 2/11/2009
- by Leigh
- Latemag.com/film
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.