In 2009, a programmer at Alamo Drafthouse named Zack Carlson was browsing eBay when he came across a curious film print: a seemingly unheard of martial arts film from 1987 called Miami Connection. He won the reel with a bid of $50, and shortly thereafter, played it at a nearly empty screening. Surprisingly, the audience went bananas, and Carson immediately scheduled the movie as a regular slot in the theater’s weekly exploitation series, Weird Wednesdays.
The film follows a group of five best friends, martial arts students, and orphans who comprise Dragon Sound, the house band at Miami’s #1 hotspot. Bassist John is engaged to Jane, the band’s lead singer, who also happens to be the sister of drug kingpin, Jack. Jack runs Miami’s most dangerous biker-ninja gang, who are enlisted by a rival band to take out their competition. Soon, Dragon Sound find themselves in the fight of their lives and their friendships, to save Miami from bad music and stupid cocaine.
In its final form, Miami Connection is a savory rendezvous with overly-choreographed action, flustered editing, and porous ADR. It jumps from set-piece to set-piece with little orientation, but there’s a copious amount of charm and earnestness felt in every scene-chewing performance. It sounds like an oxymoron, but much in the same way The Room or Troll 2 have garnered a cult-fandom siding on zealotry, so too can you find Miami Connection and the random chance that brought it back to the public, more than 20 years after its initial release.
Zack Carlson had no idea of the phenomenon he was about to create when he made that bid. He started taking it to theaters in Austin, and each time, the audience devoured the campy fights, corny dialogue, and rockin’ soundtrack. It was a crowning achievement of ‘80s cheese, aged to perfection and paired with a nice cold ginger ale.
“What I’d like to think is that people really get enthusiastic about the sincerity in the movie,” Carlson told CNN in 2012. “They initially get pulled in by the irony, the ’80s fashion, but what’s underneath it is very entertaining.”
But what was it that brought about this sincerity, this optimism of creative execution, that gave second life to the band of cinematic misfits who captivated so many hearts?
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One need only look to the making of it, to see where that honesty came from. Woo-sang Park (aka Richard Park) saw grandmaster Y.K. Kim on a South Korean talk show “Meet at 11p.m.” and called him up with an idea to make a film. Grandmaster Kim, an accomplished martial artist and motivational speaker, leapt at the opportunity, and asked his friend, Joseph Diamond, for help.
Diamond, who would portray evil gang leader Jack, was a student of Kim’s, and originally signed on as an actor, but was soon asked to help with coordinating production. As the cast came together, Diamond was then recruited to write the screenplay. With no experience writing a real Hollywood script, Diamond bought eight books on screenwriting and spent a month studying and writing a formula-driven film that would drive investors to the project.
Kim continued recruiting from his school in Miami for the best actors and martial artists in his dojo. Vincent Hirsch was already teaching at his own studio before getting the call from Kim, and taking on the role of John. Maurice Smith, who Kim believed to be the best actor, who was also his student, was given the emotionally-demanding role of Jim.
Angelo Jannotti wasn’t actually a martial arts student, but his sister was taking photos at Master Kim’s studio and found out about their need for someone who was a musician (and “someone who could get beat up”). Jannotti ended up writing the original songs “Against the Ninja” and “Friends Forever,” alongside musician Kathy Collier. Angelo and Kathy took on the roles of Tom and Jane, and helped the cast learn how to move on stage for the performance sequences.
Though novices in acting, none of the cast were unskilled in their other crafts, and that level of discipline and potential shines through in earnest in the final cut.
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With $1 million invested in production, Kim and crew; mostly locals in Miami and Orlando, spent six weeks of twenty-hour days completing the project. A whirlwind of real biker gangs, real run-ins with cocaine, and even a real interruption by real police officers, who thought one of the fight scenes was a real brawl, Y.K. Kim had free reign in the cities. So beloved was his reputation, that the government let Grandmaster Kim film wherever he wanted without permits. Despite all the craziness in authenticity, Kim is proud to say there were no real injuries while filming.
When the film wrapped, it was time to find a distributor. Kim went to Los Angeles and met with all the major studios. The consensus was clear: studios called the film “garbage.” No one was biting.
Unfettered, Kim took Miami Connection to Caan film festival, where it was laughed out of competition. Kim was told that maybe, with re-shoots and re-edits, he might have a chance. With no experience in directing and his film partner/director Woo-sang Park back in South Korea, Kim took it upon himself to rent equipment, enlist Diamond to rewrite scenes, and set up reshoots.
One major flaw was the ending: in the original conception; the near-fatal encounter in the climatic fight left Jim not wounded in the hospital, but dead. And Jack, the ninja-kingpin, alive. They re-shot and re-edited the ending for a more uplifting story. The villains fall and the good guys prevail, and Grandmaster Kim spent millions more dollars on promotion and distribution to local Orlando cinemas, hoping for the critical reception to bolster the film’s visibility and pick up national distribution. It very nearly bankrupted him.
For three weeks in 1988, Orlando buzzed with anticipation of the premiere of Miami Connection. Maurice Smith noted packed houses at local cinemas, all excited to see the homegrown work by a beloved community figurehead. When it finally premiered on August 8th, Angelo Jannotti recounts, “That’s when we found out it was funny,” even though that was never the intention.
Like starring in your local production of Oklahoma, it had flash-in-the-pan appeal in Orlando, but failed to move past its niche hometown. It lasted for two weeks in theaters before fizzling into obscurity. The film was purchased for $100,000 by a distribution company, that hid it away where it was almost destroyed in 2004 by Hurricane Charley.
So, when Grandmaster Kim got a call in December 2009 from Evan Husney at Alamo’s distribution arm, Drafthouse Films, he thought it was a cruel joke. He hung up on Husney several times, but Evan kept pushing. Months later, they finally struck a deal and the re-release came to fruition in December of 2012. Blurays, DVDs, and Vinyl records were all part of the package, with restoration of reels by Drafthouse Film of varying quality, thanks to its brush with a natural disaster.
It received overwhelming openings in LA and New York, starting at Austin’s Fantastic Fest, where the whole cast came together and performed a reunion Dragon Sound concert. And now, in the growing reclamation and restoration movement for lost films, Vinegar Syndrome is releasing a brand new 4k edition on August 30th of this year (with original and re-shot endings and a brand new, extensive documentary, Resurrecting The Dragon: Looking Back at Miami Connection (Again)
The film is a warm reminder that poorly-made films are not necessarily bad films, and that cinema is ultimately about entertainment, about bringing people together, about friendship and collaboration on a shared vision. Miami Connection is a testament to anyone who “appreciates real action (not computer generated), great music, and the true meaning for friendship and Martial Arts spirit” – as Y.K. Kim told redditors on his 2012 AMA. And it will be remembered for a long time, in some ways longer than the critically acclaimed, the groundbreaking, and the “Oscar-worthy.” Sometimes it’s those little films that could, and did, fill us with the indelible spirit of the cinema that movies are really all about.
