I Am Good At Karate

Jess Dadds’ I Am Good At Karate breaks away from the British traditional social realism film style and carves out a new experimental path, using non-linear storytelling and expressionistic brushstrokes. The film’s protagonist is a lonesome kid, weighted down by their own paralysing self-deprecation and inability to blend in with their peers. Themes of mental health issues, disadvantaged economic background, and urban alienation are seamlessly weaved through this bleak coming-of-age story energised by syncopated rhythm and a warm, saturated colour palette. Filmed in 16mm with occasional inserts of hand-processed black and white 16mm film, I Am Good At Karate illustrates a young kid’s internal journey to self-acceptance amidst institutional failure.

While the film is something of a paean to the power of an individual to fight back against the often crippling issues caused by depression and mental illness–the ending scenes in which the demon gets what for are literally and figuratively ‘punch in the air’ moments–it is also a reminder of the circumstances in which these conditions bloom. The Kid begins the film by mentioning how their brother, his best friend, and their grandmother all suffer from depression and take pills. There’s a sense of a cycle of depression, a never-ending cavalcade of suffering and pills that will pass from one generation to the next. When the Kid mentions their depression, they put their pills down the drain—and also, in a cheeky and insouciant shot, spits some remains directly down onto the camera. There’s a sense that the Kid has the chance to break a cycle, to move beyond old ways of being told how to live.