OK Benson so being a former b-boy myself and a lover of film I decided to check out your movie. I was a big fan of your documentary Planet B- boy and I watched it in theaters and bought it on DVD. I showed it to all my friends to introduce them to b-boying and I went into this movie with high hopes. Sadly Benson you let me down. This movie fails not because of the story, which is crap but its typical dance movie fare so I do not blame you for that. No one goes to see kung fu movies for the story they are there for the fighting and the same can be said for dance movies. Sure there were a few things in the script that where a bit insulting, you made all the b-boys act like children fighting over girls and oohing and awing over a women choreographer. If these guys were teenagers it would make sense, but they are grown men and I would hope they wouldn't act like that in real life. However the real failings lye with the dance scenes. I don't know what you did Benson but I was in Montipellier for Battle of the year back in 2011 when you guys filmed this movie and what I saw live was 50 times better than what you put on screen. You needed to hire a new editor first of all. Whenever you had dancing on screen you seemed more focused on showing the crowd, the reactions of the b-boys and the other main characters than on the dancing itself. It was so choppy and jumpy that by the time it went back the dancing I got so disoriented I could not tell what was going on (It amounted to dance shaky cam and as a movie fan you know the world wide audience has lost interest in that even in action movies). If you have been reading b-boy message boards you ought to know that for years we have been complaining about live b- boy feeds of events because they do the exact same thing as your movie does, not focus on the dance. You did the same thing in planet b-boy but I simply saw that as you having to cram in 5, 6 min performances and 2, 20 min battles into an hour and half documentary. It seemed you were trying to use the editing to move the audience instead of letting the dance do it on its own. Also I did not understand why you felt it necessary to have two hosts commentating over the last battles and basically telling us "hey this is cool", did you feel the audience wouldn't understand that an air flair looked cool? I know you probably needed to get a lot of difference sponsors to get this movie made so I will not call you out on the product placement because I understand. But having someone from MTV tell the audience how they should be reacting is just plain dumb, I didn't see any commentators in You Got Served, they just showed the final dance. Speaking of the final dance that's where I gave up completely on your movie. The battle I saw in France was amazing, it was the first time I had seen a mock movie battle that felt like a real battle. You also did the battle to Big Daddy Kane's – Wrath of Kane which wasn't in the movie! If you couldn't get the rights to the song fine, they why not get another song, heck you used The Roots – Boom in one of the scenes why not save that for the final battle. Instead what we got was some generic orchestral score and so you could not see the b-boys actually dancing to song or hitting beats. We just got a generic who can do the cooler moves which ended in a flipping battle?.................Lame, for all the talk in the movie that this is an art form and a dance the general audience comes out of the movie going "I like the part when they did those back flips and when that Korean guy put his leg behind his head" instead of saying "wow I really liked it when rebel (casper) hit those beats" WHICH HE DID IN THE REAL BATTLE. Maybe you do love b-boying Benson but your movie does not show that. It shows a disinterred direction more focused telling the audience that they should find this cool rather than just showing the dance as is and having them either accepting it or not. I look forward to your next movie, a time period highschool drama in Korea about kids in the 80's might be more what you're suited for. I know I won't get your frenetic editing for one thing at least. You have my money for your next movie and you are a much more successful person than I will ever be, but I simply could not sit here and not say anything about your movie. Nothing but the best for your future, Luka (B-Boy Architect)
Review of Battle of the Year
