Of the four elements of hip-hop culture, there’s never been much dispute about which has the most visual pop. Nor has breakdancing — or b-boying, the term its contemporary practitioners prefer — been a static art form in the 30-plus years since kids in the Bronx first realized the thrills of pop-and-locks, headspins and suicide corkscrews. Its evolution has been further accelerated by the globalization of hip-hop; the brave pioneers of the Rock Steady Crew could never have predicted what b-boys from Asia and Europe would someday add to the mix.

A conventionally constructed but captivating doc by Korean-American filmmaker Benson Lee, Planet B-Boy is a thrilling showcase of the state of b-boy art, or at least as it was at 2005’s Battle of the Year, an international competition in Germany. Highlighting four teams of determined and extraordinarily agile young men from France, Japan, Korea and Las Vegas, Lee’s movie inevitably wastes some precious time on human-interest stories about individual participants, stabs at wider analysis and scenes of b-boys contending with German cafeteria food. But the director knows that the performances and battles are what matter here and Planet B-Boy will not disappoint wannabe body rockers. Science doesn’t come tighter.