Saw Planet B-Boy at The Century the other night, and it is fantastic. My companion even compared it to Hoop Dreams and put it in her top 3 documentaries. It’s extended until the 24th of April so go and get a ticket now! Visit the film’s YouTube channel for clips.

[Side note: The Hoop Dreams comparison has a broader cache than I thought. One of the movie previews was for a documentary about the Kentucky Derby (some kind of horse race). The trailer had lots of shots of greedy, fat, white people cheering on horses being whipped by midgets, but some fucking critic realized his quote would only be used if he invoked Hoop Dreams thereby allowing the distributors to say that their corporate-sponsored self-fellating has street cred! What a world!]

What most people think of as breakdancing is really called “B-Boying” by those who do it. (“Breakdancing” is a term created by the media in the early 1980s.) B-Boying is one quarter of what Hip-Hop culture is all about: the expression of their joy for life by modern urban youth. The other three quarters (graffiti, MC-ing, and DJ-ing) have gotten far more mainstream notice lately and director Benson Lee (read a great interview at indieWIRE that reveals some interesting details about Lee’s past and future) has made a herculean effort to equalize that attention with this documentary.

The story centers around the Battle of the Year, the most popular B-Boying competition in the world, held annually in Braunschweig, Germany since 1990. Five teams are battling for the first prize: global respect as the best B-Boying crew on Earth. The defending champion represents South Korea, but so does a new team of up-and-comers. They are both squarely in Japan’s sights, but France and the US (a team from Las Vegas of all places) aren’t far behind.

The teams are shown in their native elements, practicing moves and showing that they are all tightly-knit groups of young men with passion for their art. Characters emerge as Lee’s video crews spend time with the dancers. The two that come most into focus are a South Korean who’s struggling widower father is disarmingly open about his pride in his son, and a Japanese who’s father passed away before he had a chance to make his father proud.

When the five finalist teams meet in Germany, their competitive spirits preclude any camaraderie until the contest is over. They exchange cool stares across the practice dance studio and cafeteria, openly taunting one another while hiding behind their language barriers. When the day of the finals arrives, the results are foreshadowed by the attitude each team brings to the stage. Doubt dominates those who fail, and positive energy carries the winners.