Red Bull BC One Breakdance World Championships
Rating: exempt from classification
Running Time: 180 minutes
Distributor: Shock

Hosted by hip-hop heavyweight and original human beat-box, Rahzel, the Berlin 2005 BC One competition is covered extensively in this impressive DVD. Featuring dancers from all over the globe, including Hong 10 from Korea, Lilou from France, Rubberlegz from Germany and plenty of US entrants including Machine, Omar and Ronnie, a wide variety of styles are on display here. Breakdance legend, Storm, judges alongside David Colas, Ducky, Asia One and Poe One.

Considering the majority of the DVD is straight footage of the competition, apart from a few extras, there is an absolute ton of it. Almost two hours of battle breaking forms the main feature and it allows the viewer to skip between finals or watch the entire competition as a whole. The quality of dancing on display is so high, however, that you'll find yourself watching the entire thing instead of just skipping to the (admittedly more impressive) grand final. The extras are interesting if not particularly re-watchable, the DVD features a History Of Breakdance slideshow which is cool, but would have been more informative were it a short documentary instead of an almost word-less slideshow set to music. The 'making-of' documentary is a bit pointless, although the slow motion special is one of the most simply awesome things I've seen in a while. It's exactly what it says it is - slowed down footage of some of the more impressive moves executed by the dancers during their runs.

The actual competition footage is mind-blowing - none of the dancers let it down and it's pure adrenalin from start to end with gravity-defying freezes, insanely teched six-steps so fast the camera barely keeps up with the dancers' feet.

The music is all electro, provided by French DJ Billy Brown and Swiss DJ Ace. None of the tracks are particularly interesting, but suit the dancing well which is what's important in that kind of situation anyway. Rahzel is a charismatic, lively host for the event and even performs a short beat-boxing set as a kind of intermission about halfway through.

The Red Bull BC One Championship DVD is well-worth the money for anybody into breakdancing or just dance in general. Probably of more interest to actual breakdancers, who could put the slow-motion special to much better use than the rest of us, it is still a worthwhile DVD. If only there were better special features.

Ben Ford Smith