Miami Connection - What Did I Just Watch
Originally published September 2017IMDB's synopsis of Miami Connection reads: "A martial arts rock band goes up against a band of motorcycle ninjas who have tightened their grip on Florida's narcotics trade." That statement alone is probably enough for most people to decide whether or not this movie is for them. It certainly was for me a few years ago when the movie streamed on Netflix. After watching it, I had to buy the disc release to make sure I had unlimited access to this trashy little gem.
I've been sitting on this review for a while, even though it clashes with the "just" in this particular category of What Did I Just Watch? I first watched this movie a few years ago, but I really didn't know how I wanted to share my thoughts about it at the time. For that matter, this website didn't exist then. Regardless of circumstances, Miami Connection is a dumb weird movie worth talking about in numerous ways. It's very likely you've never heard of it before. It's also very likely you may never hear of it again if you lack interest in it. However, if you want a Grade-A bad movie, Miami Connection might make for a few hours of hilarity.
Image: Manson International
What is it?
The IMDB synopsis and every other synopsis I have ever read for this film are a bit misleading. Part of the reason the synopses never seem to be very accurate is because it's difficult to summarize a movie like Miami Connection. It has no idea where it's going or what it's doing half the time. All of the summarizing excerpts include the details about the ninja motorcycle gang that is stealing and smuggling cocaine in Florida, and for good reason. It's a great hook to grab your attention. I'm not sure there's ever been a dumb, bad movie that made me want to watch it faster simply because of the phrase "ninja motorcycle gang." However, to be honest, the actual appearance of "ninjas" is pretty minimal.
Instead, we follow around the local Miami "rock" band, Dragon Sound: a group of "young" college students who live together, go to school together, and play two songs for many hours at local clubs before heading to the Miami beaches and harassing women in bathing suits. But that's not all they do! Some of them also practice martial arts.
Image: Manson International
YK Kim, whose skills in English are slightly better than his skills in acting, starred in, wrote, produced, and co-directed the film. Kim leads the local band in practicing variations of Tae Kwon Do and awkwardly dancing on stage with a guitar in his hands; he doesn't really play it, but he's still having fun. Apparently, the movie was spawned out of an interaction with the co-director while Kim was trying to sell his martial arts book. I'm not sure how much time was spent coming up with the story, but I imagine there weren't many rewrites. I bet that during a few brainstorming sessions, and since it was the 1980s, they decided it was necessary to up the ante for this movie and include ninjas, narcotics, and motorcycle gangs.
You may be demanding: Well, what is the movie about then?! Well, there isn't much of a story, big surprise. The main catalytic detail of the movie is a friend of the ninja motorcycle gang. He has a sister who is dating a member of Dragon Sound; she sings in the band, but her presence in the film is fleeting at times so I'm not completely sure if she's a legitimate member or just a guest singer. Her brother, who has obviously made some great choices in life, doesn't care for her decision to hang out with the Dragon Sound chumps. Thus, he and his bros start harassing the band. That's about it.
Image: Manson International
Seriously. A majority of the movie is made up of random scenes of the different parties doing random errands, hanging out, eating, and then fighting each other to the tune of Dragon Sound's two hit songs. There's a subplot that crops up at some point involving one of the band member's long-lost father contacting him and there is an eventual conclusion to that, I guess. It's just as basic as it sounds; I'll quickly summarize:
Guy gets letter. He attempts to perform emotional acting about it while everyone else stands awkwardly around him. The movie continues for hours with no updates to this event. He finally gets to meet his father who has clearly been moisturizing his skin well, because he actually looks younger than his "son" and has grey paint in his hair. The end.
I assure you, I didn't spoil anything, even though I just told you almost everything that happens in this plot thread.
The real focus of the movie is the ongoing conflict between Dragon Sound and the group of dudes who don't like them. These guys are not ninjas, nor are they a motorcycle gang, like the synopsis says. They're just junkyard rats who hang out together and work out in crappy gyms. The "ninjas" pop up once in a while to assure us they still exist in the movie, and eventually provide the bloody scenes that are destined to linger in your mind, but don't expect them to break up the action much.
Image: Manson International
What Makes it Stand Out?
There are so many different reasons this movie stands out in my mind as one of the best, worst movies I've seen. The so-called premise alone sounds like something a 6th-grade boy came up with after watching Scarface, yet the fact that this premise is barely dealt with at all makes it that much funnier to me. While it may not be as well-known as other bad movies, like The Room, it has plenty of reasons to stand out from the rest.
The "Action"
It's clear that YK Kim and crew wanted to focus on the whole martial arts thing when they were making Miami Connection. Like a Jackie Chan movie (such as Rumble in the Bronx), the heroes end up getting into many scuffles with a street gang, having to defend themselves from assault and death for very minor reasons. Unlike Jackie Chan movies (such as all of them), there is little to no fight choreography. It mostly consists of the few heroes who know some martial arts spin-kicking and whiffing punches against slightly out-of-shape guys who don't know how to fight.
I can't really describe the action beyond that, but there's a lot of it. Once the gang starts harassing Dragon Sound, there are numerous brawls that take place. There's one in the street, one in the parking lot of a Korean restaurant, two in an abandoned factory or facility, and one in a park somewhere. Most of the action is pretty tame because these are mostly amateurs who can't do the super-crazy stuff. Yet, by the end, the ninjas reappear and there's plenty of bad sword-fighting with crappy-looking special effects and body dismemberment.
Image: Manson International
The Lost Plots
The whole reason that Dragon Sound is harassed by the street gang and the ninja drug dealers is because of the fact that the gang leader's sister is in the band and he doesn't like it. Yet, the Helen of Troy in this situation eventually just disappears from the movie and has little to no impact on what continues to happen after a certain point. She is even pretty indifferent about everything when it's all said and done. This is how many small details or sub-plots in Miami Connection end.
The Extra Nonsense
The downtime in an action movie is usually the part that is the least entertaining. It's meant to give the audience a chance to catch their breath and get ready for the next fight. Miami Connection's downtime, however, is the best part. There are so many unnecessary scenes of character just chillin' and nothing is exchanged in terms of information or plot. To quickly list off some scenes where nothing is actually accomplished, there are scenes in which:
Characters slowly and not so gracefully practice their martial arts in a college garden
Dragon Sound drives along a Florida beach looking for scantily clad women
Ninja bikers go to a bar and see tits
Characters sit around a house and eat fruit that YK Kim force-feeds them
There's plenty more nonsense in which nothing happens, or where events take place that have no impact on the main characters or plot. I didn't even mention the musical numbers.
Image: Manson International
The Music
It's an ‘80s movie and you know it immediately from the style of the clothes and film, but mostly from the music. It's got that recognizable synthesizer sound all over the place. Oh, and the same two stupid songs by the band Dragon Sound. Over, and over. A solid chunk of the "action" in this movie is just watching Dragon Sound perform their songs, in their entirety, to a group of easily enthusiastic people. The music is not good, but you won't easily forget it.
Is it Worth Seeing?
This question is simply answered by whether or not you enjoy laughably bad movies. If you do, then the answer is: Yes, most definitely. If you only enjoy watching them with Mystery Science Theater-like commentary, there should be a Riff Trax out there for this movie worth watching as well. Much like other bad movie classics, like Samurai Cop or The Room, Miami Connection employs the use of poor cinematography, jump cuts, plotlines that go nowhere, nonsensical dialogue, characters that just stop showing up, etc. With the success of obviously trashy films like Sharknado or Pirhana 3D, it became popular to enjoy movies ironically, but that has brought about new "bad" films that are just trying really hard to be as absurdly internet-humor as possible to get the same success. As a result, it loses some of the soul and entertainment along the way.
Miami Connection is trash with soul. It was obviously a passion project of a few people who just wanted to make a movie but didn't really know how. A lot of it should have been left on the cutting-room floor, but because of the absurdity and goofiness of it all, Miami Connection ends up being one of the most entertainingly bad movies I've seen.
Image: Manson International
Any bad movies you think are classics? Let me know what's worth watching in the comments!
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