Weird Wednesdays: Miami Connection

This screening was part of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Weird Wednesday series. For upcoming shows, click here.

Bad movies are not poorly made. Bad movies are forgettable. Miami Connection is not a bad movie because there's not a single frame in this Central Florida-set epic about rock band/band of (adopted) brothers/Taekwondo warriors that is boring. It's unforgettable. It was for me.

I first saw Miami Connection nearly a decade ago. I was working three jobs and taking community college classes as quickly as I could so I could get out of my (slightly bigger than a) small town. Most of my friends had left for college, for work, for travel, and I spent most of my time trying to build a new version of myself to be ready for when I left too. But once a week, I would hang out with some friends from the comic shop I worked at. They were older, with developed tastes and opinions and interests that I envied. It wasn't just late teenage adoration of people in their mid-20s—at least, not entirely. They were just interested in things, voracious in their desire to find new experiences and eager to share. And they showed me Miami Connection.

I'd seen Troma films before and watched some cult classics and some MST3K, but this was, and is, something different. Despite the occasional attempts to reframe it as an object of mockery, Miami Connection is utterly sincere and entirely unique. The dress code at the bad guys' gym seems to be no shirt, jeans only. The movie pauses midway through so that Kim can do a Taekwondo presentation for the audience and also foreshadow the secret technique he'll use to defeat the head ninja. There are multiple scenes of genial, shirtless men feeding each other, talking about their dads, hoisting each other on shoulders. There are choices being made in every scene and you as a viewer can decide whether you want to embrace that deep, dark part of you that jeers and mocks every plot hole, every awkward edit, every flat line delivery, or you can experience the joy of seeing something new.

And there is sincere joy to be had here. Our Taekwando boys' band, Dragon Sound, has legitimately catchy songs. Seriously, this is an '80s vibe better than at least the Rocky IV soundtrack. The fight scenes, while clearly low-budget, are ambitious in scope with great use of space. A brawl in a train yard uses every available foot of terrain, and the fact that most of the actors are actual Taekwando practitioners lets them showcase the kind of clear, on-screen action that isn't necessary when you've got stunt doubles or sharper editing at your disposal. And while the acting isn't exactly naturalistic across the board, the cast is so visibly excited to be in the movie that it's contagious. Maurice Smith (who is not, as some outlets report, the retired MMA fighter of the same name) in particular is such a delight to see on screen that it doesn't matter if he's actually crying during his monologue. Is he a good actor? What is good acting, anyway? Is it not enough to give off such good energy that people want to see you onscreen?

Not to mention, there's a very good reason that Miami Connection doesn't feel like a Hollywood production. To put it simply, it wasn't. Instead, it was a wildly collaborative smorgasbord of talented individuals, many of whom had never made a movie before, coming together under the vision of Taekwondo instructor and Korean emigrant Y.K. Kim. It was meant to cash in on the '80s ninja craze and serve, in Kim's own words, as a recruitment tool for his Taekwondo schools. Director Richard Park was, as far as I can tell, the only one with any movie-making experience. Screenwriters, musicians, stars, and background extras were found and recruited by word of mouth, and that amateurish passion and talent shows through in every scene. A slicker version of this movie might even out the wrinkles and the awkwardness, but a slicker version of this movie wouldn't get played in theaters nearly 40 years later.

I was still young, dumb, and full of bad opinions when I first saw Miami Connection, but even I could tell instantly that it was a blast to watch. It was one of the films I saw during that time that helped push me out of the IMDb top 100 and toward the weirder, more idiosyncratic films I still like watching today. Seeing it again with a crowd laughing warmly and cheering felt like seeing old friends. And why not? As Dragon Sound sings in the film, "Friends for eternity."