Miami Connection

When I first saw the trailer for 'Miami Connection," my mind was literally blown. I knew the 1980s was a wasteland of Troma garbage and horrible B films, but this film had something more than your run of the mill awfulness. It was epic. It was beautiful. It was bad 80s pop music, complete with bad feel good lyrics you might see in some TV show, the kind of song a writer comes up with on the spot because that's what they think the "youth" music sounds like. Never mind the bad acting, editing, and overall quality of the film transfer--that was something I was expecting. What I wasn't expecting was the bad after school special side- plots, the rampant homo eroticism, the most bizarre and random gang of thugs ever assembled and the sheer 80s-ness of the film. What I really loved was the over acting by the extras in the film. They must have known that they would never get another chance to be in a film, so they hammed it up for all to see.

Now I will remind you, if you aren't into watching films that are bad enough to make Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you surely will not get the sheer awesomeness of this awful movie. If you like straight comedy or action films, then I suggest you stay away and save your money. As for the rest of us, enjoy.

Miami Connection is the perfect storm of ugly people, bad acting, stupid dialogue, horrendous action sequences, and bargain basement special effects. I wasn't sure who to root for: the evil drug lord and his retarded henchmen who are painfully clueless and inept at the simple things like being threatening on any level - or the gangster ninjas who show up and steal drugs and money from the drug lord and easily demolish the loser henchmen - or the "heroes" of the flick, the awesomely awful and culturally diverse synth rock band the Dragon Sounds who I just wanted to watch get sawed in half a la the Scarface "shower scene."

Best lines include: "they don't make buns like that down at the bakery" and "my mother was Korean and my father was Black American"

God I love this movie, it has everything a true cinephile could ever dream for. Enjoy.

Well, the RIFFTRAX versions of this movie are hilarious!

An incredibly awful movie, but it's awful in the best way possible. Holy cow, do they get everything just perfectly wrong here. The nonsensical plot is as follows: a rock band made up of taekwondo experts (led by director Y.K. Kim) crosses a gang of coke-dealing biker-ninjas ("bikers by day, ninjas by night," as the intro song informs us) and has to fend for their lives. The acting is hilariously bad - one guy clearly keeps turning to read cue cards, for instance. The editing frequently cuts far too soon or lingers on far too long. The glorious 80s music I have already mentioned. There's also a song about how awesome friendship is (the five heroes all live in a house together, go to college together, play in a band and practice taekwondo - which they pronounce tayKWONdo - together) and a song about dancing ninjas. Most of the actors are actually martial artists, but the choreography is stilted (people pause awkwardly with swords to wait to get kicked in the face), and the film goes into slow motion for no reason. It's all very laughable and it moves quickly, which makes it quite watchable. This can be watched on Netflix - nay, must be watched on Netflix.

Okay let's get something outa the way right here and now. This film critically... sucks. Hell it does more than merely suck. It's shoddy, the acting is woeful, the plot is nonsensical and it has a hilariously bad subplot involving one band member's quest to find his father. The soundtrack is dire. So, for those of you who expect some form of quality in their cinema, then I recommend The Exorcist or if you don't like horror, then I dunno. The Lives of Others maybe. I haven't seen it but lots of critics really seem to like it so knock yourselves out. However... for those of you who are less discerning... well.

Every so often a film transcends its mere badness via its sheer unintentional hilarity. It becomes a different beast entirely and strays from the realm of crap to the magical plane of craptastic. Some have boldy come before it such as Mad Foxes, Raw Force, White Fire and Gymkata, leaving trash fans with their jaws slightly agape afterward and also pretty big shoes to fill. These films are passed along via word of mouth, so a select few people- those who are willing to overlook such niceties as "quality" and "technical prowess", or "pleasing cinematography"- can appreciate their crappy goodness and for you select fans who know what I'm talking about then have no fear... The Miami Connection is one of those films. And any fan of tacky 80s crap will thank me for this recommendation, trust me on this.

Oh yeah the plot. I dunno, a really bad syntho pop group go up against a drug cartel for some reason. I was too busy laughing to pay close attention.

Anyway, a strong solid 7/10 on the craptastic level, a perfect beer or whatevs flick or just a great flick to cheer you up if you're having a crappy day.

But critically, it's really really bad.