Celebreak

Kung Fu and Breaking

There’s a pretty interested read about old Kung Fu Movies and their influence on Breaking over at KoreanRoc.com 

Going to see kung fu movies on 42nd St. became a ritual for the youth of New York City. B-Boys especially took to the films, with their physically dynamic choreography, which was closer to dance than actual combat. Bruce Lee in real life was a Latin dancer. He was the Hong Kong Crown Colony Cha-Cha champion in 1958. In his movies, he does a form of footwork that is very similar to top rocking. While serious filmgoers denounced kung fu films, the B-Boys took to the films as their own. Ken Swift explains, “42nd St. was like ‘wow!’, these are subtitled, they’re putting these English voices over, these movies aren’t even made in the States, that’s even more like ’wow!,’ you feel like you’re really a part of something.”