Miami Connection

Well, the RIFFTRAX versions of this movie are hilarious!

I took one look at the cover art and immediately knew what kind of film I was in for when I saw the ninjas riding motorcycles. With such a campy premise, it's impossible to take seriously.

Mark (Y. K. Kim), Tom, Jack, Jim, and John are five orphan college students (even though the first two guys look like they're in their early 40s) all make up the band Dragon Sound and manage to accidentally piss off a street gang with connections to a group of coke dealing biker ninjas led by Yashito and his lieutenant Jeff. Making matters worse, in some loose romantic sub-plot, John is dating Jeffs sister, Jane, who soon starts singing for the band. Luckily, Mark is a Tae Kwan Do instructor and taught the band well enough to fight ninjas with swords so they're ready to kick butt and take names.

As expected, the action scenes are ridiculously corny and over the top, yet still fun to watch. The Dragon Sound members all pull off some pretty sweet martial arts moves even though some were muddled by blurry slow-motion effects. Plus, the final battle against Yashita was a disappointing one-sided beatdown in Marks' favor.

The shooting locations looked decent, even though most of the movie was shot in Orlando instead of Miami and lighting was poor at times. But to me, what makes this a little better than any other dime a dozen budget 80s martial arts flick was the great music. Dragon Sound had some awesome and catchy songs like Friends, Tough Guy, and Against the Ninja. The whole soundtrack just screamed 80s, even though none of the band members are actually playing their instruments except for Tom's actor, Aangelo Janotti. Still, the soundtrack earned six stars instead of the typical five I'd give a film like this.

But naturally, all the acting is awful. The "actors" all sound totally apathetic as they speak their lines and look bored most of the time, probably well-aware of what they signed up for. John even mutters "Oh. Ninjas" when Yashitas goons come riding up to them like he was reacting to the weather or something, and the sub-plot about Jim's long-lost father was too ham fisted to be affective. And if that's not happening, the cast tend to show exaggerated and goofy expressions during the fight scenes. For me, the most unintentionally hysterical moment was Jim's reaction to getting slashed across the chest and Mark repeatedly screaming his name afterward.

Speaking of which, it's no surprise that this was Y. K. Kim's one and only acting role. No question, he's a tough martial artist and does great in the fight scenes, but his Korean accent is so thick, you can't understand him half the time without subtitles.

I wasn't expecting this to be as good as other 80's martial arts flicks like Bloodsport or The Last Dragon. But if you're into "so bad, it's good" kind of action films with 80's rock music, then definitely one a watch if you're bored.

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 (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Some college kids from Central Florida not only play in a rock band but they're also masters at martial arts. Good thing for them because one of the members begins dating a girl whose brother just happens to be the leader of a violent motorcycle gang involved in all sorts of illegal activities.

It's strange how movies are usually forgotten only to later be rediscovered for some reason. The history of Miami CONNECTION is pretty fascinating as it pretty much died as soon as it was released and no one even knew about it outside the filmmakers and cast. Twenty-two years later a programmer for the Alamo Drafthouse ended up buying a copy of the film on eBay for $50 and soon he was booking it and out of nowhere a large cult following started. Today, Miami CONNECTIOn has a rather large cult following and it even got a special edition released to DVD and Blu-ray.

So, why do so many awful movies get forgotten and others ones like this end up with a cult following? My only guess is that some movies reach the "so bad they're good" level because the filmmakers went into the project not thinking they were making a low-budget bad movies but instead they go in thinking they're making the next CITIZEN KANE. I'm sure they believe that everything from the acting to the directing to the screenplay is just something special when it fact it's all very, very bad. This film is certainly awful on just about every level from the performances to the incredibly awful rock soundtrack but thankfully there are some moments that are so awful that you can't help but laugh.

There are many highlights (or lowlights depends on how you see it) here including some stereotypes that are just so cringe-worthy that you can't help but laugh. The rock band has different ethnic members but the Asian and black guys are so laughable that you can't help but wonder what they were thinking. The subplot dealing with the black guy not knowing who is father is is just priceless. Another highlight is the over-the-top violence including a "death" scenes towards the end, which has to be one of the funniest ever filmed. I'm not going to ruin what major character it happens to but I dare anyone watch it and not laugh.

Miami CONNECTION is an awful movie, there's no question about it but thankfully there are enough bad moments to make it worth viewing if you're a fan of this type of thing.

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.