Yesterday night, I had the opportunity to see Benson Lee’s Planet B-Boy at the Lumiere in San Francisco. And you might have heard about it in the film festival circuit or through the YouTube front-page promotion or through other Asian-American bloggers, but seriously – go see the movie. You won’t be disappointed.
On the surface, Planet B-Boy is a documentary about breakdancing and B-Boy culture, and don’t get me wrong: it covers the the culture of breakdancing very, very well. You want to see the flares and the floor work or the B-Boy battles? You’ve got it, and you’ve got practically two hours of choreographed goodness to watch.
But for those of you that haven’t been completely enthralled watching America’s Best Dance Crew the past couple of weeks, Lee does a fantastic job mixing the breaking, popping and battling with the background stories of how this part of hip-hop culture has affected members of four crews all over the world: people in Japan, South Korean, France and the United States that would live very different lifestyles, but are united in a common culture and meet in Germany at the end of the movie to kick the crap out of each other battle on a dance floor and spin around on their head a lot. I’m tongue-and-cheek at that last sentence, obviously, but for those of you who are less into B-Boy culture and just into a good person-focused documentary, you wouldn’t be disappointed either; issues such as racism, classism and familial relationships are brought as much front to center as the flares.
But enough of me trying to write like a movie critic; go see the movie already. A list of cities where the movie is being performed is listed on the director’s YouTube page.
