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.

This has to be one of the best bad movies ever made. My friend found the cover for this movie online and we just had to see it. Wow, nothing will prepare you for all the cheesy 80's awesomeness, the genuine confusion, and incredible quotes(Oh my God!). Why are the bad guys trying to kill these guys? I forgot half way through the movie, something about ninjas and cocaine I think. They're in a band, really? A ninja band!? Well technically it's Tae Kwon Do, but who cares. Those songs will stick with you the rest of your life, they're not half bad either, super catchy with ridiculous lyrics.

Y.K. Kim, God bless you. You are a stand up guy in real life, an ambassador for martial arts, an enthusiastic American immigrant, and have created something that encapsulates the absurdity that is the 1980's. This movie has to be seen by lovers of camp everywhere. No joke, it will change your life.

It doesn't take long into watching "Miami Connection" to come up with a sizeable list of various kinds of ineptness to be found in it. But I want to start off by listing a few positive things about the movie. It is well photographed and lit, including the night sequences. Plus, the themes of friendship and loyalty found in the movie are commendable. And I can't say that the movie is *boring*. But more often than not, the movie gets away from being boring by being amusingly inept. The acting is incredibly bad; it's easy to see that none of the cast is a professional actor. The fight sequences are awkward. The songs are awful, but catchy enough that you won't be able to get them out of your head. And don't let me get started on the motorcycle ninjas! Is this a classic so bad that it's good movie? In my opinion, no - it isn't *quite* that aggressive in its badness. But with modern so bad that they're good movies being nearly impossible to find these days, this is adequate enough to feed your appetite for cinematic silliness.

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.

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.