It
seems a bit late to write about this but really, I have been working
on something so I couldn't do it earlier. Anyway, I watched it on
this stormy day and it cheered me somehow.
Certainly,
plot should be a determining element to be a good movie, but as we
all know, storyline usually does not matter so much in this high
school type of movies. Presentation is another factor but I wouldn't
say I like it, but of course I am not an expert of films. So I am
going to understand it as a dancer.
Characters-
well, I can't say I like any one of them, nor I dislike any one of
them. It just seemed that these guys had no real life apart from
dancing, even their love stories did not look sweet enough- it just
didn't feel right for university students did not having part tine,
struggling with assignments, having real life problems. These
portraits were obviously not real. Noh, wait, Momoko looked real but
she chose to 'betray' them (for me, I think she made a choice to
pursue her bigger dream which is not the same as BombA’s.)
The
catchy phrase 'how far can you go, if it is for dancing', sounds
really like a teenager. As a keen dancer, I believe, the hardest part
is not to struggle with injuries (we live with them); the hardest
part, however, has been struggling between real life matters
(studying, earning a living, developing one's own career) and the
desire to pursue professional technique. We love dancing, so if we
choose it our career, we can go far more than any one can imagine,
but when it couldn't feed us then we mostly make it a part time aside
our regular job.
Rooftoppers
were nice in group dance. It just makes little sense to me to chase
on the roof like ninjas, jumping from one building to another and
hang yourself like a flag on the roof top (is it how they got their
name?). Would it be a culture of the local Hip Hop dancers I do not
know, but it looked weird to me that dancers endangering their lives
pretending to be spidermen. We are dancers, not acrobats. I always
think that we need to care for our bodies and health, because we love
dancing and want to dance more. So whenever we are not stuntmen we
better keep us in a good condition.
The
story- um, the major idea has been better than the acting.
For one thing I would say it's better than Street Dance 2. In the
world of dancing, I don’t think there is a thing called ‘enemy’,
every competitor can be rival for the same cup or championship, but
even when we are on the same floor, we appreciate each other’s
effort. We like to perfect ourselves and go beyond rather than
thinking of ‘beating’ the others.
As
a teacher, I would like to see those with natural talent to shine on
the floor and when they reach the top and go beyond me, I would truly
be proud of them. The BombA girl Hua got inspired by Stormy of
Rooftopper made a resonation with a true teacher. I like Stormy most
of the time, he never flaunted but stayed humble. He saw the talent
in Hua and did not hide his admiration, he saw her fail but he
cheered her up, although they were competitors.
The
Dances- alright, please do remember that I am not a
professional in Hip Hop, and I have personal bias watching dances. I
don’t like the dances until the last competition. When Stormy was
video-ing BombA’s first team dance, and announced the debut of the
fresh girl, and determined ‘she was the coolest of all’… I just
couldn’t agree with that. Although it makes sense for the whole
team to improve from not-so-good to very-good, I couldn’t forget
that from the beginning, BombA had already been quite nice and they
came second in everything, tightly following Rooftopper. With this
background, I would not expect a not-so-nice dance.
I
like the idea of merging Tai Chi and Hip Hop, martial arts and modern
dance have already been married so why not Tai Chi and Hip Hop? In
fact I like this part of dancing very much. I myself did kick-boxing
(and am a certified trainer as well) my son does a lot of Tae Kwon Do
and freshly earned a black strip belt, we both find quite a lot of
similarities between martial arts and dancing. The merged up dance
looked more like jazz, but Hip Hop does derive from jazz (and later
on grew some distinctive characters).
The
final competition was great. It made a great show. A great show, to
me, means that it didn’t look like a competition. In my
understanding, a competition is more about technique, choreography,
musicality and presentation, but it does not include using other
gears. They have an awesome choreography. With the heavy beat of
stomping the sticks, we felt the thrill rising up from the bottom of
the heart. However, it did not overdo by giving us a break and calmed
us with the Tai Chi. We also had a very cute shadowgraphy presenting
a story. And then we got back to the group dance, which was also a
very entertaining one. The group had been really great! They together
made a good show although I did not see much on individual’s
technique and musicality; well, a team dance meant to have more on
co-ordination and connection, so it did not fail in making a great
team dance.