True story – I saw Breakin’ at the drive in. It was the second feature of a double bill with Streets Of Fire. It was the summer of 1984. I remember distinctly this experience as my best friend and I had taken lawn chairs and set them up in the vacant spot next to us while my mom was in the car with my younger brothers.
Why do I bring this up? Why not. It makes the film a little more interesting. Alright, maybe not. Whenever I hear about the movie Breakin’ I always think back to that night at the drive in and the fun evening that was had. I never did see the sequel, which apparently came out less than a year after the original. Well, until now.
Shout Factory has the two movies together on Blu-ray as a double feature, and it works. Both films aren’t necessarily the greatest, or have large general appeal. They do capture a time and try to bring a dance style to a more mainstream audience. They are both fun, and neither is particularly bad, though the sequel doesn’t seem like it is as necessary is it purports. It was supposed to be a continuation of the original, with a teaser mention at the end of Breakin’.
Set in Los Angeles we have Kelly, a traditional dancer, who discovers the street scene and break dancing. The struggle here is for acceptance. The street dancers, let by Ozone and Turbo, just want their dancing to be seen as legitimate. Kelly with her connections and training gets an agent, and, well, the final result you can imagine. Seriously, if you don’t expect this film to have some sort of happy ending you’re an idiot.
Other than the main plot we get a side story of a dance rivalry between TKO (Ozone and Turbo’s dance group) and another street dance gang. There are a couple of good scenese here where the two groups dance off against each other. Holy crap that’s Ice T!
Breakin’ 2 is set an indeterminate time after the first – though it was released (according to IMDB) 7 months later. In the intervening time Kelly is estranged from Ozone and Turbo and has a different agent. Why? To provide inter-personal conflict we are introduced to Kelly’s parents who are wealthy and in direct contrast to Ozone and Turbo. This aspect of Kelly’s personal life was not in the original film where she was first presented working as a waitress – presenting a conflict in the narrative.
Eventually the gang needs to put on a show. Along the way we get a few highly unrealistic sequences that are pure fantasy. These are fun to watch but ultimately detract from the narrative. And there’s Ice T again! What the hell is he wearing?
There are no special features on the first film. The sequel carries over a few featurettes attached to the sequel from the original DVD release which aren’t as interesting as they should be. There is a new audio commentary with director Sam Firstenberg, actor (and choreographer) Adolfo Quinones who portrayed Ozone, and editor Marcus Manton. The first two do most of the talking discussing the making of the film, and definitely something fans will want to listen in on – especially if you’ve seen as many films from the 80s as I have.
This is a good package that Shout Factory has put together. Fans of the two films will definintely want to pick this up. The picture is probably better than it ever has been, the sound is good and the dance moves just don’t stop.