Miami Connection - 1987

"My mother was Korean.  My father was black American.  She gave me this picture when she was real sick.  I was only nine years old," cries Jim in a pivotal scene of Miami Connection.  This film.  This film, wow.  I don't even know where to start with this one.  This is probably the most logical pre-cursor to Birdemic if there was a pre-cursor to that film.  And if you haven't seen Birdemic, see it.  And now imagine, what if the director (who by the way, cannot speak English in a discernible way at all) played a major part in the film.

...Okay wait...don't stop there.  Now throw in some really ridiculous music, some ninjas, awful Tae Kwon Do, scores of bad actors in every minor and major role, hilariously bad shots of everything, ridiculous editing....I'd say this is high on the list of "films made in the most amateur way possible".  This movie breaks about every rule there is to cinema, but is still incredibly enjoyable in every single way.  

Short of having an incomprehensible plot, this movie did everything wrong.  Yes, the plot isn't quite linear, but it's just so simple that it's impossible to get it fucked up.  But everything else, wow.  The producer/star Y.K. Kim can barely speak English, luckily has little lines, but STILL!  The actors in other roles are all bad and besides the black guy, really easy to confuse.  The black guy Jim is a horrible actor, and is asked to do a crying scene where he says that line in the opening paragraph about his black American father.  Uh, guys, it's African American.  The script is obviously horrendous, written by someone who clearly didn't know English that well and probably shouldn't have been writing scripts....

The most ridiculous though, is just the premise!  We open with some scene of ninja's stealing cocaine from some baddies on a drug deal.  They take the cocaine, then we go to a band performing the incredibly stupid song "Friends" where they sing about loyalty and honesty and friendships.   Oh, yes.  Turns out this band is a group of friends that do everything together - they all go school together, live together, they're all orphans, they all practice Tae Kwon Do, they feed each other grapes....it's as bad as you can possibly imagine.  They get tangled up with these ninjas because of another disgruntled band that wanted their performing slot at the venue they were playing at.  The rival band hires the ninja clan to take out the good guy band, which is called Dragon Sound.

So, fights ensue.  Fights, but first there's pointless scenes aplenty!  A beach scene where they harass some girls!  Practicing Tae Kwon Do scene where YK Kim pinches a guy's nose with his toes!  Restaurant scene where they just eat food while the chef awkwardly looks on, a weird smile on his face!  Going to breakfast, a minute at school, and then going to lunch!  This movie is so bad that it actually feels like it's either insulting our intelligence as a film, that or it's making us dumber slowly.  It's just that watching it really makes us feel like WTF is wrong with me, why am I watching this?!

I did see it beamed throughout theaters with Rifftrax commenting on it, but that still counts as seeing the flick.  Like Ghosthouse, this movie is perfect for riffing.  It's great for drinking, but not getting smashed.  Similar for weed.  Tread lightly, still be able to enjoy the flick in other words.

It's fucking sweet, gets 5 stars.