Miami Connection has quickly become a legend in the realm of “so bad it’s good” movies. As far as I’m concerned, it’s probably the most entertaining bad movie I’ve ever seen. It’s got everything you could possibly want in a crappy flick: a ridiculous plot, amazingly bad acting, hamfisted dialogue, inept production values — even a series of synth-drenched dance tunes sung by the actors. And did I forget to mention the ninjas? Trust me, The Room is a total snooze compared to Miami Connection.
The film has traveled a circuituous route to its status as a cult classic. Originally shot in 1987, Miami Connection was the brainchild of writer/director Richard Park and Florida-based Tae Kwon Do instructor Y.K. Kim. Park had seen Kim doing martial arts demos on a local TV station and was struck with the notion to build a film around him. Kim’s heavy accent and complete lack of acting experience didn’t matter to Park, who convinced Kim of his vision. Kim financed the film, taking out loans and spending his savings on the production. The film debuted in a handful of Florida theaters, but wasn’t picked up by any distributors and quickly disappeared into pop culture oblivion.
It would have stayed there, but in 2009 a programmer for an Austin, Texas movie theater saw a copy of the film for sale on eBay for $50. He bought it sight unseen, and soon screened it at the theater. The audience of bad film fans lapped it up, and the theater reached out to Kim, striking a deal to redistribute the film. Soon Miami Connection found its way to midnight screenings around the country, where it caused a sensation among a certain breed of film fan.
I caught the flick on one of TCM’s late-night Underground showings and instantly fell in love. The film is an amateurish mess, but it’s clearly a labor of love for the people involved. These guys really wanted to make a good action movie, but none of them had any idea how to go about doing that. The flick careens from one scene to the next without any of it making much sense. There are a bunch of drug dealing ninjas, a terrible pop band made up of the film’s tae kwon do heroes, a bizarre scene where the main villain hangs out at a real-life biker bar for some unknown reason, overwrought emotional monologues, bad wigs and so, so much more.
The flick can be found on lots of streaming services like Vudu, but those services plop commercials into the middle of things. For what I sense will be a limited time, though, someone has posted Miami Connection on YouTube for free in all its insane glory. If you’re a fan of crazy bad flicks, you owe it to yourself to check it out, before the copyright holders put it back behind the YouTube paywall.
Related: My Favorite Films of 2015
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