Now I know what you're all thinking. No, despite what the title may suggest, Miami Connection not a rip off of the French Connection. It's much, much crazier. You see, this movie tells the timeless (read, only in the 80's) tale of a martial arts rock band battling a gang of motorcycle ninjas who are taking over Miami's narcotics trade. That story. Think Chinese Connection meets Scarface and maybe a Chuck Norris movie, with lots of bad original music.
The stars of this show are Dragon Sound, the aforementioned rock and roll band. In addition to being in a band together, they also attend the same college, teach at the same dojo, share the same apartment, and just happen to all be orphans. They're practically brothers! Hence the frequent lectures about the importance of brotherhood and friendship. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were actual college buddies who signed up for the movie together, since none of them can act and only one of them can do martial arts particularly well.
Not that the other characters are much better. The ninjas and their leader are threatening enough, but few of them can act either. You'll also notice pretty quick that everyone in this movie talks like an awkward teenager or a douchebag frat bro. Which many of them probably are, given that much of this movie is shot around the University of Central Florida. Yes, aside from a few beach scenes, none of this movie was shot anywhere near Miami. It's actually the Orlando connection.
Now you've probably already guessed this, but none of the plot makes sense. For instance, the band introduces their new "hit" song, Against the Ninja, before they've fought or even met any ninjas. And even though the bad guys are killing people and dealing drugs all across town, most of the conflict is over who the villain's sister is dating and which band got the weekend gig at the local club. The guys in Dragon Sound honestly don't seem to be aware that the ninjas are killing off all the other drug gangs.
Perhaps it's understandable that the plot would be minimal, since most of it is just an excuse for martial arts fights and rock numbers. Only the fights are nuts, and the music sucks. By nuts, I mean the fights are a mix of fairly competent martial arts and random flailing, interspersed with some of the most over the top screaming and bizarre facial expressions you've ever seen. Most of them involve all of the good guys fighting a whole mob of ninjas or random thugs, so the director frequently loses control of the action, until everything degenerates into a giant free form brawl. Add in some massive spurts of the fakest blood possible, and it's just hilariously insane..
There's nothing glorious about the music though. It's just the most awful, watered down hair metal you can imagine. You can't even understand half the words. Winger rocked harder and had better lyrics than these guys. But hey, it adds to the overall goofiness and fits pretty well with the rest of the movie. This whole thing is just such an insane, hilarious mess, from the ridiculously violent opening scene to the jaw dropping end tital card. It's a bad movie in every respect, but it's a very fun bad movie. Be sure to check out the Rifftrax version.
The stars of this show are Dragon Sound, the aforementioned rock and roll band. In addition to being in a band together, they also attend the same college, teach at the same dojo, share the same apartment, and just happen to all be orphans. They're practically brothers! Hence the frequent lectures about the importance of brotherhood and friendship. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were actual college buddies who signed up for the movie together, since none of them can act and only one of them can do martial arts particularly well.
Not that the other characters are much better. The ninjas and their leader are threatening enough, but few of them can act either. You'll also notice pretty quick that everyone in this movie talks like an awkward teenager or a douchebag frat bro. Which many of them probably are, given that much of this movie is shot around the University of Central Florida. Yes, aside from a few beach scenes, none of this movie was shot anywhere near Miami. It's actually the Orlando connection.
Now you've probably already guessed this, but none of the plot makes sense. For instance, the band introduces their new "hit" song, Against the Ninja, before they've fought or even met any ninjas. And even though the bad guys are killing people and dealing drugs all across town, most of the conflict is over who the villain's sister is dating and which band got the weekend gig at the local club. The guys in Dragon Sound honestly don't seem to be aware that the ninjas are killing off all the other drug gangs.
Perhaps it's understandable that the plot would be minimal, since most of it is just an excuse for martial arts fights and rock numbers. Only the fights are nuts, and the music sucks. By nuts, I mean the fights are a mix of fairly competent martial arts and random flailing, interspersed with some of the most over the top screaming and bizarre facial expressions you've ever seen. Most of them involve all of the good guys fighting a whole mob of ninjas or random thugs, so the director frequently loses control of the action, until everything degenerates into a giant free form brawl. Add in some massive spurts of the fakest blood possible, and it's just hilariously insane..
There's nothing glorious about the music though. It's just the most awful, watered down hair metal you can imagine. You can't even understand half the words. Winger rocked harder and had better lyrics than these guys. But hey, it adds to the overall goofiness and fits pretty well with the rest of the movie. This whole thing is just such an insane, hilarious mess, from the ridiculously violent opening scene to the jaw dropping end tital card. It's a bad movie in every respect, but it's a very fun bad movie. Be sure to check out the Rifftrax version.