Memphis writers script Amazon series about break dancing and martial arts
Break dancing and karate combine in “Breakarate“(what else would you call it?), an eight-episode family-friendly action series created by a pair of Memphis
writers; it debuts next week on Amazon.
As one might anticipate (or fear, depending on one’s tolerance for Mtv-era nostalgia), “Breakarate” takes place in “sort of an alternative universe where it’s perpetually the 1980s,” said Los Angeles-based actor Patrick Cox, the former Memphian who created and scripted the series with a friend who still lives here, Germantown’s Clay Baird.
“The idea was to mash up martial arts with the dance and music genres,” said Baird, 45, video productions manager at Ducks Unlimited, the Memphisbased waterfowl and wetlands conservation organization.
“Pat and I are really nostalgic people,” he said, “and since we grew up watching karate movies on the USA Network
and listening to the early stages of hip-hop, the show is kind of a throwback to all of that.”
“When I watched the episodes, I had a smile on my face the entire time,” said Cox, 44, who cited “The Karate Kid,” the Power Rangers, John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble in Little China” and Mr. T as in
fluences on the show’s vibe.
Another major influence was a Cox childhood favorite, 1985’s so-bad-it’sgood (or is it?) “Gymkata,” a martial arts movie starring Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas. The movie is an obvious source for “Breakarate,” as evidenced by the film’s original trailer, which Cox can quote by heart: “‘Combine the discipline, the timing and the power of gymnastics with the explosive force of karate, and a new, more powerful martial art is born — gymkata.’ It’s so cool, I’m geeking out right now, just talking about.”
The performers on “Breakarate” may not be Olympians, but “they are insanely, unbelievably athletic dancers,” Cox said.
“So when you see them doing their fight and dance moves, that really is them doing their fight and dance moves. There’s no wires, no CGI, it’s just these amazing kids, transforming their dance moves into fighting moves.”
Tongue in cheek as well as foot in face, “Breakarate” focuses on a pair of adopted brothers (played by Trevor Logan and Brian Siregar) whose local “rec center” is menaced by nefarious “punkung-fu” — i.e., punk rock-meets-martial arts — assassins. The Neon Ninja, the Disco Samurai and Mirrorball Max are among the other colorful, comedic characters who inhabit this unlikely world, in which dance styles are adapted into fighting techniques.
One episode even features “yacht rock akido.” (“Yacht rock,” for those not in the know, is the now in-vogue name for the polished West Coast soft-rock sound of such artists as Michael Mcdonald and Toto.) Said Cox: “You can fight to anything, man.”
For “Breakarate,” the road from crazy concept to Amazon Prime reality was not as easy as one, two, Bruce Lee.
Cox pitched the show more than three years ago to Jude Harris, a former MTV producer who had cast the 6foot-5, 300-pound Cox as a homicidal hayseed in “Savage County,” a horror movie Harris shot in Memphis in 2009.
Harris’ new company was Los Angeles-based Gunpowder & Sky, and Cox and Baird developed several movie and TV concepts to pitch to G&S. Harris passed on the duo’s ideas, however, until Cox, in desperation, pitched his goofiest premise, “Breakarate.” Of course, that was the one that got the green light.
Directed by veteran visual effects artist Zak Stoltz (who contributed enough ideas to be credited as a co-creator on the show, along with Cox and Baird), “Breakarate” was shot in late 2017 in Los Angeles and originally purchased for distribution by a streaming platform that went out of business.
That left “Breakarate” in limbo, hunting for a new home until a deal was struck with Amazon, where all eight of its bite-size episodes — they run a kidfriendly 11 to 15 minutes each — are slated to become available May 22. (The episodes will be free to watch for Amazon Prime members and available to rent for others.)
Millions of eyeballs have access to Amazon, so “Breakarate” has the potential to attract a large audience. That’s the rose-colored-glasses view of the show’s availability. A dimmer way to look at it is to note that about 800 trillion movies and TV shows also are on Amazon, so it’s tough for an unheralded program to get noticed. As a product of
Gunpowder & Sky, an independent company with a few art-house hits (the acclaimed “Her Smell” with Elisabeth Moss among them), “Breakarate” is essentially on its own; there’s no advertising budget, so the show will depend for promotion on social media word-ofmouth.
“I don’t think anyone went into this thinking it was immediately going to be a nation-sweeping hit,” said “Breakarate” producer Ryland Aldrich of Los Angeles. “But we took a funny idea and made it into something we’re proud of. It’s fun and it will lighten your spirit.
“It’s wild and wacky, and we were able to really stretch our legs with the stunts,” he said. “The visual effects are wild, and they were all done with techniques that would have been available in the 1980s time frame.”
Cox — a fledgling actor the size of Sinbad’s roc — and Baird — a film production major at the University of Memphis — became friends about 15 years ago, when they were working on Memphis filmmaker Drew Smith’s local independent feature, “The Book of Noah.” Cox eventually left for Los Angeles, where he found roles in “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Aquaman” (his last pre-coronavirus role was in horror auteur James Wan’s upcoming “Malignant”), while Baird stayed in Memphis.
For Baird, the validation will be especially meaningful when he sits down to watch “Breakarate” with his wife and their three children. “They knew that I wrote movies, and they were like, ‘Can I see any?’ and I was like, ‘There’s nothing for you to see.’ That’s changed now.”