Beat Street, while being a little cheesy, is another quintessentially classic bboying movie. It could be said that this move is directly responsible for the rise of "true" Hip-Hop not only in Australia, but through out the world.
Personally I didn't see this movie until 2002 when my mother stumbled across it at supermarket on DVD for $5, but now thanks to the internet you can watch the whole movie for free.
By far the best, most famous and obviously most bitten scenes in this movie are the Up-Rock scene in the Subway, and the Battle scene at the Roxy!.
Trivia
- Kadeem Hardison is credited as High School Student in the film. His shots were cut completely along with the classroom up-rocking battle scene.
- About 80% of the footage in the original theatrical trailer is not included in the final cut. Examples include Ramón getting his bag ripped off while walking with Kenny and Charlie, several battle outtakes including the classroom up-rocking scene, Ramón on a set of drums, and one dancer flipping off against a wall at the Burning Spear nightclub. Several other pieces of footage were included as well but were in freeze frame in the opening credits of the film. The trailer also includes an alternate version of title song performed by Kool Moe Dee, (who appears in the film in the "Christmas Rappin'" sequence with the rest of the Treacherous Three), which also did not appear in the movie nor on the original soundtrack albums.
- Most of the graffiti art that was displayed all throughout the film was not done by real graffiti artists - it was airbrushed by set decorators.
- It was the producers' idea for the main cast to wear Kangol hats and Puma sneakers all throughout production of the film even though many of the dancers felt that it wasn't authentic.
- According to Fast Break (who appeared in the Treacherous Three sequence), there was a classroom up-rocking battle scene that involved the New York City Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew, but it was cut. There was also more of the climatic battle between these two crews at the Roxy nightclub.
- Crazy Legs later said that during the filming of the battle scene at the Roxy he wanted to battle to Jimmy Castor's song "It's Just Begun," but he was disappointed to find out that the crews were going to battle to a record called "Breaker's Revenge" because of rights issues.
- This project was sponsored by Puma. The original soundtrack LPs have the Puma logo printed on them, reading, "Puma as seen in 'Beat Street.'"
- This was the first American film to have more than one soundtrack album of music featured in a film released. Originally, three volumes of music were planned, but Atlantic Records only released two of them, and the second volume was never released on compact disc.
Enjoy