I was excited to catch a screening of Frank Lin’s Battle B-Boy, which showed as an official selection of the 2013 Vietnamese International Film Festival. It’s a high-energy, family friendly film about a group of friends who end up competing in an underground dance fighting organization to win $100,000 in order to save the life of their friend’s father.
What is dance fighting, you ask? Well, it’s a mix of hip-hop, break dancing and martial arts where punches and kicks are thrown to the beat of music. It’s a unique, fictional evolution of hip-hop culture and Battle B-Boy does a great job of giving life to this high-concept, hybrid style of dance and martial arts.
Battle B-Boy features a cast of very talented performers as well as some very creative choreography and stunt work. The dance battles were definitely the highlight of the film, with gravity-defying moves and impressive displays of strength and agility. There was no doubt in my mind that these were real dancers caught on film in their natural environment.
This film was made for a mere $20,000, which in movie making terms is essentially having zero budget, but Frank Lin and his team were able to deliver a polished film with tons of interesting locations and high production value. It’s a real testament to independent filmmaking that feature length films don’t have to break the bank.
While Battle B-Boy is an impressive accomplishment as far as independent filmmaking goes, it’s not without its flaws. The main story arc of trying to raise money to help an ailing father is straight forward, but the film also tries to introduce a sub-story for each of its five main characters, which I felt affected the focus and pacing of the film at times. It was an ambitious attempt by the filmmakers to inject backstories for all five main characters, but due to film length and most likely budgetary restraints, each character’s backstory doesn’t get the attention it deserves. This is unfortunate because Frank Lin created some very interesting characters that would have flourished had they had the screen time to grow. The result is a cast of colorful characters that are enriched with troubles and flaws that everyone can identify with, but each character’s sub-story is ultimately rushed to its resolve within moments of revealing itself to the audience.
Rushed character development aside, Battle B-Boy is still a fantastic product from a group of very talented and passionate people. I look forward to seeing future films from Frank Lin and Co. and applaud their accomplishment in creating an entertaining, artistic and culturally relevant film for everyone to enjoy.
Go HERE for interviews from the cast and crew of Battle B-Boy.
Battle B-Boy is available for streaming and purchase on Netflix, iTunes, Vudu, and Amazon.com
– Andrew Chen, AOF Staff Writer and cardboard floor ninja
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