And welcome baaaaaack to Indie Film Cafe, Season 5! And we’re hitting the ground running with a cheesy old 80’s chop-socky stinker called Miami Connection, an indie flick soooo stinky it sat on the shelf and fermented fer about 15 years before it finally got released on DVD, Blu-ray, and limited-edition VHS by those nuts over at Drafthouse Films! And thank goodness they did, because this cheeser is all Limburger! :=8P
Join the Indie Film Cafe kids as they are joined by actor, writer, and director James L. Edwards in the latest podcast episode!
Aack, where to begin? Well, we have us a group of fun-lovin’ moolti-cultural friends who FIGHT CRIME, and are also students of a local chop-socky club AND members of a ‘world touring’ 80’s big hair-n-spandex synth-pop band called Dragon Sound, and includes Mark (the Asian guy you can’t udderstand), John (the hopeless base player who somecow has a girlfriend), Jack the drummer (no one cares about the drummer), and Jim, the Token Black keyboardist who REALLY misses his dad. A girl named Jane hangs around and occasionally Linda McCartney’s up on stage with Dragon Sound, but poofs when the script no longer requires her. Also they FIGHT NINJAS!!! COOOOLLLL!!!
Honestly, I am not really certain what the heck happens in this moovie, udder than our friends forever get into fights with a crime lord, some scooter bike ninjas, some moore criminals, some mean guys in a parking lot, some mean guys at a club, and finally some moore ninjas. Because everybody is a ninja! And there are some concert breaks and beach shenanigans in between. Oh, and its moostly filmed in Orlando, not Miami, in case yer cowfused about that. YK Kim (Mark) was a Taekwondo instructor with a vision, and he pretty mooch came up with this idea for a moovie, but no one wanted it. In his own words: “I went to Twentieth Century, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, you name it. Every single person say, ‘Hey, Y.K. Kim, this is trash, this is trash! Don’t waste your time!’ I don’t even know how many times this movie died. But I went too far, I couldn’t stop. No way! Whenever I wanted to stop I can see my students’ faces. That’s the martial arts spirit. I had promised these students, you know?”
Yeah, we know…
It might have been too cheesy for 1987, but in 2012 the world was ready to wallow in 80’s cheese nostalgia, and so the little crappy flick that cudn’t got a second life as a ‘so bad its good’ moovie, proving once and for all that timing is everything! It was originally directed by Woo-sang Park (Shaolin: Blood Mission, L.A. Streetfighters, Chinatown 2), but Kim was so disappointed with the end result that he re-shot scenes and re-edited it, and Park had left to go back to Korea, and so Kim became the co-director. Moost of the players were not professional actors (really???), and were students at Kim’s dojo, and so naturally filled out the film with moore enthusiasm than skill. But, they were friends forever!
Yeah, we’re not gonna lie folks, this was a stinker! Moody and the MooCow awarded Miami Connection 9.5 and 8.5, respectively, while guest co-host James L. Edwards went with an 8, giving Miami Connection a Stinky Total of 26, which is a Stinky Average of 8.7! On the Ladder of Stink, this flick nestles right between Blood Freak and Jack Frost, at 26.5, and From Hell it Came, at 25.5. Oooof, that’s stinky! :=8D
We gots yer trailer right HERE! And you can check it out for free on Youtube and also Tubi (including the awesome Rifftrax version!). You can also rent/buy it on Google play. Good luck getting the physical medium: the DVD on Amazon is a hefty $200, while the blue ray on Amazon is only slightly cheaper at $166, but at least yer getting both formats. Physical media, as well as posters and udder stuff, can be found on Ebay, but it ain’t cheap! Well, at least you can get the funny RIFFTRAX version for a decent price. At the Drafthouse site you can buy or rent the digital version, but I dunno about getting an actual dvd or blu ray, unfortunately. Redbubble has several kewl posters to decorate your wall, while Amazon has an 8×12 tin plate poster! CineMaterial has several versions too. Git yer Miami Connection tee shirt on at Teepublic, Redbubble, and Cult Collectibles.
And, of course, you NEEDS that Dragon Sound tee shirt too! Miami Connection mugs can be had at Redbubble and Teepublic, while Tee Shirt Palace has a nifty Dragon Soond mug! If you wana hear the soundtrack of the film (god help you!), you can find it on Spotify and SoundCloud. But if u just want the rockin’ Against the Ninja, well…HERE it is, in all its ‘glory’. And what real fan of this stinky moovie can live without Miami Connection SOCKS?? you can get Dragon Sound Stickers and Buttons too!
So yeah, believe the hype: Miami Connection is a fun, silly, stinky slice of 80’s cheese that you just have to experience for yourself, and your life can have a happy ending, just like the moovie!
;=8)
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