Film Review – Planet B-Boy
Jun 08, 2008 in american film, film reviews
Title: Planet B-Boy
Director: Benson Lee
Year: 2008
Genre: Documentary
Format Reviewed: Film
Planet B-Boy is a documentary about hip-hop inspired break dancing. The film explores the phenomenon and how it spread throughout the world, how it is perceived, and how it is continued in the past few years, in a worldwide competition held in Germany. Although it is nice to get an overall background on the subject (especially for those not familiar with it but have an interest, like myself), the real prize of this movie is seeing what b-boy’ing means to each country’s team, and more specifically to each b-boy themselves. The story follows several top-ranking teams from around the world in a way that it shows the true unification power of what the dance can bring, as well as inspiring and empowering the viewer, as the b-boy’s have done themselves, to pursue their own dreams.
The poster for this movie may be a poor portrayal of b-boy’ing. That is, you can’t really feel the music in a still picture like this. B-boy dancing can only be truly felt with the motion picture and music going through your body. This is surely the one thing the film must do without being a failure. Even if the story was poor, the characters dumb, and run time too long… anyone going in to see this movie is wanting to see some good dancing. Planet B-Boy does this well in many eye-candy shots of b-boy’ing in public places around the world, and performances from the world competition which serve as the climax of the film.
But the climax is not so just for pure enjoyment of the music and dancing. There is an emotional intensity to the story, as we see the backgrounds of each team and their members. They all seem to have different reasons to dance, and victory is a means to some other personal goal. Even further, one can’t help but get caught up in watching another person work year-after-year to pursue what they love and find a way to express themselves. It truly gives a perspective on life and begs the viewer to ask themselves: What are you doing to express yourself? And are you working towards your personal goals in life? There is nothing more empowering than seeing another human being reach this state of near-nirvana.
reviewer’s note: the film is “unrated,” but is safe for all ages.
Rating: 5 /5
