One World Cinema's blog

This documentary about the history and camaraderie about breakdancers and footage of formed teams, including, "Ichigeki", "Gamblerz", "Phase-T", and "Knucklehead Zoo", that compete worldwide throughout various nations, including Korea, Japan, France, and the US, is probably one of the best films I've seen this year, along, with "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation". Directed by Benson Lee, "Planet B-Boy" is only playing at "The Landmark Sunshine Cinema" on Houston Street. The birth of breakdancing started in the streets of NYC as a freedom of expression from the repression of the 1960's and 70's economy, and became exploited in the 1980's with movies like, "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo". The artform received it's influence from gymnastics, acrobatics, yoga, and even dance moves from artists including the Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown. As it grew in popularity and gained a worldwide recognition, the Koreans wanted to become more advanced than the rest of the world, learning tricks that would take a regular B-Boy 2-3 years to learn, and are proud of having the best head spinner in the world.

For most of the performers, there is nothing better than dancing, as it provides "an outlet to satisfy their thirst for creativity, allows one to release emotions, gives a reason for them to explode and feel free", a chance to show the whole world that guys who come from a minimum, can accomplish a maximum, without limits, allowing a chance to discover oneself, feeling more self confident, addicted, what they train their entire lives for, offering a chance to discover oneself, allowing them to feel unified, as ONE in spirit, their only joy in life, and offers respect and spirituality". As one dancer, nicknamed, "Crazy Monkey" put it, "if I don't dance for 3 days, I get crazy. Most keep their priorities straight, and have good hearts, as another dancer informed us that, "there is nothing stronger than my family bond, it's not about the competition, but about being together, unifying, peace and love, and how when we leave this Earth, we don't have our wealth, but we DO have our honor", and although the drive to improve moves you, and how it's the "guy that provokes you, who gives you the power to do better, there are more important things out there than winning".

Other comments from the dancers family members and views on the generational gap, "I feel like my parents think I am I am cleaning the floor or something", while a dancer shared his grief how his father died a few years ago from a carotenoid tumor in his liver. A mother of a French dancer from Chelles, 25 km outside of Paris, shared with the audience how, "at first his father and I were opposed to him learning how to breakdance, because most of the other dancers were 6 feet, tall and black, black, black, and my son is small, Caucasian, and blonde, blonde, blonde". A father of a Korean dancer confessed his guilt as he worked as a social worker and was unable to support his son's interest in dancing and how he felt bad about that.", another father stated, "I am very proud of my son", while his son stated, "I want to win for my father", and lastly, another father who told his son to go out there and, "rip that sh!t".