Kata is a Japanese-language short film that is beautiful inside and out — from dialogue, to setting, to the inner spirituality captured by the film’s lead subject, Mahiro Takano. The film is practically a 6-minute monologue, however, its words of determination about a young woman’s drive to learn karate kept me rapt on high.

Kata, meaning “form” in English, journeys into a temple surrounded by a bamboo forest that provides the ideal training ground for a young, female karate prodigy. Starting out by showing her young age in juxtaposition to an elder monk of the temple, as Takano begins to show her skills, she matures right before the camera’s eye, showing the wide breadth of karate movements, and her maturity that makes her wise beyond her years.

I appreciated the way that Kata crescendos from a quiet, unassuming piece to higher and higher pitches of dramatic determination and grit. The monologue style feels as though we are inside the mind of Takano while she practices, her well-practiced and controlled martial arts choreography becoming more mesmerizing as the monologue and music rose to an effective climax.

Takano, who has been one of Japan’s leading, young martial artists for many years and rose to international fame starring in Sia’s Alive video in 2015, gives yet another powerful performance, in a short amount of time showing that though she may be a long-running, undefeated national karate form champion, she is also her biggest critic and opponent in continuing her growth in this martial art.

Director and co-writer James Latimer does an excellent job at connecting audiences with both the spiritual setting of a Japanese temple as well as the featured subject, Mahiro Takano. His short film, Kata, will be making its U.S. premiere among the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival’s “Shorts: Go Big”, a category reserved for sports-themed, short documentaries.

MOVIE RATING — 7 out of 10