Planet B-Boy Documentary Review

I have been meaning to watch Planet B-Boy for a while now and finally have! A good documentary following the best b-boy crews in the world leading up to the Battle of the Year competition. There was a lot of hype leading up to the release of this film, and I remember watching amazing footage of breakers dancing in their own respective countries with very dynamic backdrops. The actual film cut many of these dances short (the reason I watched this movie was to see the amazing cinematography, and to be quite honest, I feel shorted). Many three to four minute routines that I saw leading up to the release were reduced to a meager 30 seconds. One dance that instantly springs to my mind is at the South and North Korean border, where two soldiers from the South battle two soldiers from the North. This whole dance was approximately six minutes long in the trailers; the Planet B-Boy documentary showed maybe 30 seconds of this.

None-the-less, Planet B-Boy analyzes what once existed only as a street performance and has evolved into a recognized, legitimate type of art-form. Even though this has been the aim of several similar films — such as Scratch and Breakin’ to name a few — Planet B-Boy does a good job of examining the behind-the-scenes lives of b-boys from all walks of life, ranging from America to Asia to Europe to Africa. The film points out the similarities and differences between differing countries’ styles and outlooks on what constitutes a b-boy. Planet B-Boy also makes examples apparent that are true in any type of sport, competition or art-form; that no matter how different continents can be, the thing that brings them all together circulates around one thing: break dancing.  The documentary does well to bring light to a generation of Hip-Hop culture that general passers-by might overlook.

Planet B-Boy ends with a message that there is life after the Battle of the Year tournament, and that this experience for the teams involved helps them receive the publicity so that they may make a means for economical survival.