2005 French National Champion B-boy Claude dances in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in the documentary film Planet B-Boy. (Benson Lee/Elephant Eye Films/Mongrel Media)

Most breakdancers cringe at the phrase “breakdancer." The correct name is actually “b-boy” or “b-girl.” Breakdancing, they feel, is a media-generated term that brings back embarrassing memories from the 1980s, during the explosion of the subculture in movies like Flashdance (1983), Breakin’ and Beat Street (both 1984).

The new documentary Planet B-Boy breaks down the dance, its history and lifestyle, to prove that it’s much more than an ’80s fad. Directed by Canadian-born filmmaker Benson Lee, Planet B-Boy picks up where Hollywood left off, starting with the old-school caricatures, which were over-styled yet watered-down versions of true b-boys.

“It was ugly,” claims Ken Swift in Planet B-Boy. He’s a member of New York’s legendary Rock Steady Crew and also appeared in Flashdance. Swift says the media sucked everything they could out of b-boy culture, lost interest and moved on. Also featured in the film is Storm of Battle Squad Crew Germany, who explains that he and his friends went to see Flashdance “not to see Jennifer Beals, not to see that love story, [but] to see the Rock Steady dancing on the street.”

Indeed, it was the Flashdance moment that began the globalization of b-boying, and to some extent, hip hop. The film also inspired Benson Lee to try breakin’. He eventually fell out of it and became a filmmaker, but a decade later, he went online to see what had happened to this subculture.

“Everyone remembers this dance form, but nobody currently understands what’s going on with it,” says Lee during a recent interview. “People are still stuck on that whole pop-culture fad of doing the Worm, doing the Robot, to say ‘I grew up in the ’80s.’” What the 38-year-old Lee discovered was that “the b-boys are like the Bionic Man: they came back stronger and faster.”

Planet B-Boy is about the proliferation of b-boying around the globe, and it follows the top dancers from South Korea, Japan, France and the U.S. to Battle of the Year in Germany, the World Cup for b-boys. More than a year ago, clips from the movie started circulating online. One of the most compelling is a dance sequence set on the 38^th Parallel, the line that divides North and South Korea. Soldiers from both countries stand guard, only to get down; what starts off as popping and toprocking turns into a b-boy battle between the Koreas.

In actuality, the scene was shot on a studio lot made to look like the Demilitarized Zone. “If we did that on the real DMZ, we’d have four dead b-boys by now,” laughs Lee, who is of Korean descent. (The sad reality is that the South Korean breakers in Planet B-Boy have to join the army, where dancing is prohibited, for a minimum of two years.)

The Korean Gamblerz crew practices in the gym the day before Battle of the Year in the documentary Planet B-Boy. (Benson Lee/Elephant Eye Films/Mongrel Media)

The strength of Planet B-Boy is not simply the screen time dedicated to dancing, but the back stories of the various participants. While moves like “headspins,” “airflares” and “1990s” are enough to leave viewers dizzy with disbelief, some of the best moments explore social themes. Wonder kid Lil Kev of the French crew Phase-T reveals his mom’s racist attitude towards black b-boys; Katsu from Japan’s Ichigeki crew deals with the death of his father; and b-boy Joe from rural South Korea talks about seeking his single father’s approval.

Visually, this isn’t a point and shoot documentary. Planet B-Boy is more like a collection of stunning postcards from places like the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower and the streets of Osaka, Japan. With the exception of the battles, shots have been storyboarded, shoots have been planned. This treatment, combined with graffiti-heavy graphic elements, creates a look that’s somewhere between MTV and National Geographic.

As the title suggests, the movie focuses on b-boys, which might leave some people wondering about Planet B-Girl. Despite the increase in b-girling and the ongoing issue of sexism in hip hop, Lee’s documentary only interviews one female breaker. Lee admits “there are so many b-girls, and they’re some of the most beautiful dancers I’ve ever seen. They bring something to breaking that the guys can’t bring.” But he says the focus of his film was on the Battle of the Year competition.

Lee feels that reality shows like Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew and So You Think You Can Dance? have done a lot to rekindle mainstream interest in urban dance. “Dance culture is cyclical in the mainstream. The last time we had it big was in the ’80s. All those dance movies, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, you name it,” says Lee. Not only that, the new vogue is helping to school laypeople in the subject. “People are learning how hard it is to actually be a dancer, and how much work you have to put into it.”

That said, Lee is not happy with the current state of Hollywood dance movies. “[It’s] all about the civilized ballerina who falls in love with the uncivilized street dancer from the wrong side of the tracks, and how her parents won’t agree with that.” The strength of Planet B-Boy is that it doesn’t fall for such clichés, and speaks to the subculture as well as a mainstream that might assume that breakdancing is passé.

“These are phenomenal dancers, this is a very sophisticated dance form [and] there are a lot of messages and ideas being expressed through the dance nowadays,” explains Lee. “It’s not just a bunch of kids rolling around on the street corner.”

Planet B-Boy opens in Toronto and Vancouver on May 30.

Jennifer Hollett is a Toronto-based writer.