Three laughs: Miami Connection

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most "quality" films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Miami Connection (1987)
Director: Park Woo-sang

Lost for decades, the cheap 80's VHS movie Miami Connection was the first real gem discovered by the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and restored for an audience hungry for some prime cheese and turkey action. Miami Connection mashes together a story of a teen rock band and a crime thriller about about drug-dealing ninjas. It's exactly as bonkers as it sounds. But really, the film is funniest when attempting to be "just another movie". Everyone on screen is extremely awkward, their lines don't sound like anything anyone has actually said in real life, and the basically very clichéd plot becomes more and more bizarre the more elements are thrown into the pot.

The star and producer Y.K. Kim later became some sort of inspirational speaker, and it can perhaps be seen from his script, since such wisdoms are seen in the film such as "Only through the elimination of violence can we achieve world peace". As an actor, he's something to see. It's a bit cheap to make fun of his thick accent, but it is really hard to understand what he's saying, even when it's over-the-top action movie clichés such as "You don't scare me at all. Goodbye!"

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. A lot of the film's fun hangs on how cheesily 80's the entire thing is. So I hope you like mullets, synth-music and godawful clothing. The biggest laugh comes from the great reveal of all of this - after a fight scene where a gang of ninjas have killed some drug dealers and split the loot we see the band Dragon Sound in all their glory. Playing shirtlessly their hit song "Friends Forever" at a smoky, blue-tinted club to some really white-bread audience having trouble clapping along.

2. It's always hilarious when Kim is showing off his tae kwon do skills with ridiculous Bruce Lee -poses and grunts. My favorite is the practice scene where he takes his friends to school by showing a fist to Jack's mouth and humiliating John by grabbing his nose by his toes.

3. The real star of the film is Maurice Smith's keyboard player Jim, who has the most soap opera -like arc which sees him being teased of sending out some mysterious letters. It turns out he's just trying to find his father, probably by mailing to every candidate he can think of. When he finally finds him, he lets out an incredible high-pitched yelp. But alas, fate has a real ironic twist in mind for him, which motivates the surprisingly brutal final fight, which sees Kim brandishing a machete, among other things. Against the Ninja!

Three laughs: 3 Dev Adam

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

3 Dev Adam (1973)
Director: T. Fikret Uçak

Turkish exploitation films could be a genre on their own. They are some of the weirdest trash movies one could hope to see, yet I feel like many conisseurs of bad movies don't tend to know too much of them. Turkish Star Wars of course is a cult classic, but there are plenty of other good ones as well. What makes Turkish films special is the total disregard for copyright, good taste or any kind of grown-up logic, which makes many of the movies seem like children playing as portrayed by adults.

Case in point is the film known as Three Mighty Men, which I usually just call 3 Dev Adam. The grubby VHS-ripped film sees a Turkish version of Spider-Man start a brutal takeover of Istanbul's crime syndicates, and who gets sent to stop this lunatic but Captain America and the Mexican luchadore Santo themselves! The Turkish knockoff versions have little to do with their original counterparts, especially Spider-Man (called The Spider), whose costume is red and green, and likes to stab mafiosos with knives and put people in elaborate death traps. I think he was the model for the portrayal of Joker in The Dark Knight.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The very first scene introduces us to the brutality of Spider-Man. His goons capture a pretty girl on a beach and they bury her neck-deep in the sand. Soon, The Spider brings out a motor boat, and proceeds to shove the spinning propeller into the face of the girl. This violence is intercut with the smiling face of Spider's girlfriend, apparently telephatically surveying the scene from a completely different setting.

2. Another insane way for The Spider to execute his victims is to tie a gangster onto a pole and attaching two tennis ball tubes to his eyes. He then unleashes two vicious guinea pigs to the other side of the tube. The critters run up to the tube and apparently eat his eyes, killing him. Adios mafia.

3. The film, which is basically a game of tag with people in Halloween costumes, goes out its way to appear "mature". And by that I mean that besides the violence, there are also sex scenes and footage of strippers. It is really hard to figure out what the filmmakers were going for. During one sex scene the film cuts to some fugly puppets taking a glance at each other and cackling. And then to another, puppet, now a policeman, before cutting back to the sex. This is never explained, and the next scene is the first big fight scene between Santo, Captain America and The Spider, in which it is revealed that whenever The Spider is beaten, it is somehow a clone or some other replica and the real villain is somewhere entirily else making his getaway. Goodnight, Americanos!

Three laughs: Action Jackson

 
It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Action Jackson (1988)
Director: Craig R. Baxley

There's a certain question on whether to include knowingly ridiculous action movies on this column. But I figure, why the hell not, they give me joy. So a disclaimer to this that this isn't a "so-bad-it's-good" movie, whatever those are. Action Jackson is a good romp and meant to be. It just doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Noted Burger King enthusiast Carl Weathers should have been a bigger action star. He has the charisma to carry multiple franchises, and held his own against Stallone and Schwarzenegger (in Rocky 1-4 and Predator, respectively). But sadly, in the 80's the world wasn't ready for an action hero that wasn't Eddie Murphy. Even though Action Jackson has as much ridiculous over-the-top action as anything this side of Commando does, it has largely been forgotten. It does make me laugh in multiple parts.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):
1. The movie opens as sleazily and explosively as any 1980's Joel Silver movie. A future #metoo cancelled rich dude tries to seduce a model girl in his penthouse apartement when a group of SWAT dudes jump through the glass ceiling to kill him. In a move that could not be any more discreet, they shoot him up with a rocket launcher, and get him to fall through the glass to his death. Off to a good start!

2. Action Jackson lives up to his name by running into action by running up to a fleeing cab and jumping onto it while everything explodes in the background for some reason. Jackson is almost supernaturally fit. In the end of this escapade he has a standoff with the car, and he manages to jump up so high that the car drives through under him. Even Captain America would raise his eyebrows to that one. The car promptly drives through a ramp to its explosive destruction.

3. I must give a shout-out to the climax of the film, that is as close to live-action version of a Simpsons McBain bit as anything. Action Jackson goes to his final face-off to a wealthy businessman's mansion by driving a Ferrari to his house. And not only that, to minimize walking, he also drives it up the stairs. Good thing the main villain had maximalist architects working for his home and base of operations.

Three laughs: Thunder of the Gigantic Serpent

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Thunder of the Gigantic Sepent (Hong Kong, 1988)
Director: Godfrey Ho (as Charles Lee)

If Bruno Mattei is known for combining two movies' worth of stolen ideas into one movie, then Hong Kong's maestro Godfrey Ho does that literally. He used to buy film stock and combine multiple films into one with English dubbing. Mostly these are Ninja pictures, which have main characters that never meet, and more abandoned plot threads left unexplored than the last seasons of Lost and Game of Thrones combined. But Ho really did also test out which movies sold.

Case in point he bought out a Korean giant monster movie and combined it with a spy thriller. The end result is Thunder of a Gigantic Serpent, a title which sounds like an euphemism of farting before having to go to the bathroom. As you can imagine, much of the pleasure of this film comes from trying to combine a gritty crime thriller leaving plenty of corpses behind, and a silly family comedy of a pet snake growing into impossible size. But you know, some of the Godzilla movies were pretty violent, too. Somehow it all stays together.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The titular Gigantic Serpent starts out small, as a tiny snake that befriends a little girl. As the girl is asking on what to call her new pet, the snake waves its head first horizontally in disapproval, then vertically when the girl comes up with a name. She decides to call it Mozlov. The snake is in parts played by a rubber hose on a string, other times by an actual snake. Either way, the boneheaded way of having it nod or shake its head gives out a giggle each time.
2. The dubbing in general in this film is kind of hilarious. The main little girl sounds like a British lady talking with a very soft voice. The main bad guy seems to try out a voice somewhere between Cobra Commander and a cartoon vampire. The voices of his minions, gangsters and criminals are trying to sound as tough as they can. This includes swearing, which works to further destroy the illusion that this is supposed to be a family movie. "He lost the fucking formula!"
3. Once Mozlov the snake gets electrocuted with a groth ray, we enter the phase of the rubber puppets. The snake has a really irritating parrot-like scream. The sitcom-like comedy of a little girl trying to hide a huge snake in her room seems to have some Freudian undertones. I also love the scenes of the snake helping the girl out to win a roller-ski race pushing her around are to be seen to be believed.

One must add that the titular Thunder the Gigantic Serpent makes once the gangters start to threaten the little girl, is as underwhelming as they come. Just rattle a few bridges and skyscrapers and that's it. But being denied of your expectations is all part of the charm of these VHS-era clunkers. I wish we could have had a proper dvd or blu-ray release of this.

Three Laughs: Battle Wizard

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

The Battle Wizard (Tian long ba bu, 1977)
Director: Pao Hsueh-li

Last time in this series I somewhat insensitively picked an Italian movie even though it was Chinese New Year. So, now I'm here writing about a film from Hong Kong. I have written on Shaw Brothers films years ago on this blog, but I have to confess, I haven't really ventured that far further into the Rabbit hole of crazy kung fu films.

That's a real shame, since The Oily Maniac is far from the only batshit insane movie to be seen there. Case in point is the fantasy epic Battle Wizard. It's a wuxia epic with magic powers, frickin' lasers and all sorts of strange and wonderful ideas. The main plot concerns a vengeful wizard named Yellow Robe Man (Shih Chung-Tien) avenging his loss of legs by kidnapping a prince's son Duan Yu (Danny Lee). On the way to freedom, the main hero learns kung fu by drinking the blood of a giant snake and falls in love with a kunoichi (female ninja) who has to marry the first man who sees her face. So we're in for a rollicking good time.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. After being surprised in bed with his wife, the first fight starts between Yellow Robe Man and the film's black magic -wielding original Fresh Prince (Wai Wang). The future Emperor finishes fast by pointing his finger and shooting lasers out of it. In fact, he shoots Yellow Robe Man's legs clean off. This gives the first hint that we are not witnessing a run-off-the-mill kung fu epic here.
2. The film has really ridiculous weaponry. The kunoichi like to use a plastic bone that shoots red darts. The head henchman has a single crab-like claw for a hand that also comes unattached with a rope hanging out. But my out-of-nowhere favorite weapon is a box that has a radioactive frog inside. The frog leaps to an enemy's neck and is so toxic that the enemy dies in an instant.
3. Any movie is instantly better once there is a gorilla or other kind of large ape. One of the final obstacles our hero has to go through is a kung fu gorilla. That has got to be the worst Halloween gorilla suit I've ever seen in a movie. Meanwhile, Yellow Robe Man has some extended stilts with which to fight the Emperor. The gorilla is strong enough to crush stone pillars for some reason, but our hero can defeat it by eating a magic frog and by combining snake and frog powers, give out a strong enough laser to first stun the gorilla and then tear it limb from limb. WAI WANG WINS. FATALITY.