It’s difficult to say if this 2023 British film’s release in Japan was meant to coincide with the 2024 Paris Olympics, which featured breaking (break dancing for you old-timers) as an official event for the first time. Likely not, but the timing provides a certain ironic context given that the most prevalent topic surrounding the breaking competition at the Games was its air of cultural appropriation—which may explain, at least partly, why it isn’t scheduled to be reprised at the next Olympics. For sure, Americans, specifically African-Americans, who invented breaking were under-represented at the Games, and probably for understandable reasons. Serious breakers in the U.S. probably don’t have much use for this kind of organized presentation, with judges and scores and such, so that leaves it to the Europeans and the Japanese, who take such competitions seriously. Breaking Point is conceived as a classic sports movie, wherein the main characters work toward a big tournament, in this case a world team championship. The fact that the final match (spoiler!) comes down to Britain-versus-France shows where the film’s priorities lie.

The drama is provided by brothers Benji (Karam Singh) and Trey (Kelvin Clark), whose relationship has been icy ever since their mother died in a car accident that they survived. Both were gifted street dancers in their youth, but after the accident went separate ways, goal-wise, with Trey abandoning breaking and working toward admission to a good university and Benji sticking with breaking, which he practices usually under less-than-legal circumstances. There are, of course, love interests and family conflicts, and eventually the two brothers bury the hatchet and work toward forming an all-UK team that can go to the world championships. Since the two leads were chosen for their footwork, the acting is, at best, serviceable, but the script is better than the above description might indicate if only because the family dynamics at play are just complicated enough to draw you into the story. 

The hook is and should be the breaking, which is difficult to judge for someone like me, not so much because of the moves themselves but rather the music, which is more hip-hop-adjacent than hip-hop. Consequently, the routines feel over-choreographed, lacking the kind of spontaneity that made old school breaking so exciting when paired with genuine raps. But then the victor of the tournament, per the implications of the filmmakers, is determined mainly by the quality of the coaching. You can’t get more Olympics-oriented than that.

Opens Sept. 13 in Tokyo at Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

Breaking Point home page in Japanese

photo (c) FAE Films BP Ltd. 2023