'Planet B-Boy:' A positive spin on break dancing

By Michael Sragow | Sun movie critic

April 25, 2008

(B+) Hip-hop fans should flock to Planet B-Boy to see what break dancing looks like around the world, but so should movie-musical and performance-art fans who love intelligent and aggressive improvisation and energy.

Benson Lee's movie follows b-boy crews from France, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. as they prepare for and engage in the 2005 international Battle of the Year, staged in Braunschweig, Germany. The buildup engages you in national styles and rivalries. You see what hip-hop experts mean when they say that Japan boasts innovative choreography, France the most musical dancers, and South Korea powerful and precise acrobatics. (Then you see how all the qualities cross into each other.)

For anyone who hasn't been following hip-hop, witnessing these groups will be reminiscent of watching Michael Jackson moonwalk on the 1983 Motown 25 special: You can't believe what they're capable of doing, including head spins that threaten to launch the dancers into orbit and group moves that resemble cutting-edge cheerleading squads cutting loose.

The movie puts a humorous twist on French resentment of the U.S. (an American hip-hopper expresses befuddlement: After all, he didn't vote for Bush), before zeroing in on the respectful competition between Korea and Japan, and later between Asians and Europeans.

The creative tensions come together in Braunschweig, when the groups put on shows to qualify for the finals, in which two groups face off for third place and another two for first (in the actual Battle of the Year).

The shows themselves are extraordinary, especially Japan's Ichigei group, which has the all-out fun and athleticism of a vitaminized Twyla Tharp troupe. But the interactions in these climactic freestyle battles are even more astonishing: The groups take on the dynamism of the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story, except without a hint of regimentation.

Like the Jets and the Sharks, Phase-T from a struggling French suburb and Last for One from provincial South Korea carry the force of marginalized figures fighting for respect.

Planet B-Boy has all the zing of a boxing movie sans brutality. Without this subject and its novelty, it might come off as the hip-hop equivalent of an Olympics highlight movie, complete with "up-close-and-personal" human-interest stories.

But this deftly shot record of the Battle of the Year displays the inspiring virtues of artistic competition - and offers even mere onlookers a testosterone rush.

>>>Planet B-Boy (Elephant Eye Films) A documentary by Benson Lee. Unrated. Time 101 minutes.

michael.sragow@baltsun.com

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'Planet B-Boy:' A positive spin on break dancing

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'Planet B-Boy:' A positive spin on break dancing

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