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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
BE WARNED!!! THEY RUINED THE BEST SCENE!, October 23, 2002
It's a shame really. This classic among classics would have otherwise received 10 stars from me (even without all the extras, which are great btw). But they butchered what has got to be the best part of the whole film... the scene where Grandmaster Flash is cutting records in his kitchen!!! In the original print, you see (and just as importantly, hear) Flash cutting up The Headhunters "God Made Me Funky" and then Bob James "Take Me To The Mardi Gras" while the film cuts back and forth to members of the Rock Steady Crew break dancing (For those not up on their samples, the Bob James tune was most famously used as the backing track to Run DMC's "Peter Piper"). Well, my guess is that they never cleared the song for use in the film and didn't want to pay whatever it was going to cost to clear it, so...they simply cut the audio out and REPLACED it with a track made to SOUND like "Mardi Gras" .....with HORRIBLE results. They should have, at the VERY least, had a warning written somewhere on the back of the case, letting unsuspecting buyers know that this is NOT Wild Style as it was originally shown in 1983. I don't know how other die-hard hip hop heads out there feel about this, but to me, Rhino straight up [messed up] this film. ...Over 25 years old and hip hop STILL doesn't get it's proper respect...even when it's well deserved as in this case.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The truest film reflection of Hip Hop, December 16, 2004
Wild Style was created by independent New York filmmaker Charlie Ahearn with the help of Fred Braithwaite (aka Fab Five Freddy). The first movie to depict the elements of hip hop, it became an underground hit. It featured well-known graffiti writers Lee and Lady Pink as "Zoro" and "Ladybug", and included performances by Grandmaster Flash (in his own kitchen!), Grand Wizard Theodore, Busy Bee Starski, The Cold Crush Brothers, and b-boy champions the Rock Steady Crew. Lee admits, "It didn't really have a script, but we didn't have a script in real life. The film didn't call for acting because we were being ourselves. There's no Hollywood thing about it" (from the excellent book Yes Yes Ya'll, 2002). This lack of a "Hollywood thing" is precisely what made Wild Style so popular among the people who lived hip hop. Writers were played by writers, DJs were played by DJs, and the breakers were real b-boys.
Fab 5 Freddy wanted the film to tie together the elements of hip hop, and show the rest of the nation that graffiti, breaking, and DJing and MCing came out of the same place, and often the same people. The result is the most accurate depiction of hip hop in film. Lingering shots of boarded up buildings, junk yards, and filthy subway stops portrayed the Bronx for what it was. Zoro tries to balance street credibility with commissions to do pieces on canvas from wealthy art collectors. He is a young man trying to find his place in a difficult world. Blondie's Chris Stein describes it, "Wild Style was just so ahead of its time. I remember telling Charlie Ahearn, `As soon as this thing comes out, mark my words, Hollywood will eat it.' And Beat Street came out... which was a sappy, watered-down version".
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
legendary classic, October 9, 2003
im from england and in 1984 the hip hop breaking and grafiti scene arrived. but it took me a good 6 months to really get into it. i use to bomb my school walls and break too. in 1985 the breakin scene died down, but in my heart i wanted to keep it alive. it wasnt till the summer of 1986 when i went to NEW YORK that i was looking forward to seeing the greatest breakers and graffiti artists, but when i arrived it was all finished. i even asked people on the street wheres all the breakin and graffiti, they replied its out of style man. i was just so saddened i could not have seen a culture which in my view was new yorks greatest. it wasnt till after that i saw WILD STYLE,WHICH made it more saddened for me. i actually stayed in the south bronx, in which was the centre of it all. Wild style bought the real fruit of the culture. if there was no wild style, i dont think there would of been beat street, breakin or any of the other classics. Even to this day i still have the pleasure in watching it. Many people in ENGLAND believed that going and bombing trains in new york was part of the film, but life in NEW YORK was exactly how you saw wild style. I remember a puerto rican guy named CHICO who i made friends with over in new york, said to me" wild style exactly how new york was in 1983,84. i guess my real sadness was i couldnt of gone to new york at that time to see it. GOD BLESS, all old skool lovers.... adesh kumar.... many thanks
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