Genre Criticism: “The Karate Kid” (Coming-of-Age)

At home watch The Karate Kid 2010.
After having identified a key reaction to this film in your lede, identify and describe the aspects of cinematic storytelling that are specific to your film’s genre and critically explain how they contributed to that key reaction. In other words, engage in what
Module 3 referred to as genre criticism (feel free to go back and read that chapter).
The title of your essay should be the name of the film and its genre. For example: “The Shining” (Horror/Mystery).
Genre Criticism
● concerned with identifying and describing the basic structural similarities among groups of works – that is, the things that make a film a romantic comedy, action/adventure, horror, sci-fi fantasy, etc.;
● examines the constellation of recurring substantive and stylistic features, tropes and expectations; and
● creates and applies an artistic measuring stick to evaluate the aesthetics of the work.
Methodology:
(a) Research the genre of your film and familiarize yourself with the story and storytelling conventions that define it. Familiarize yourself with the genre-defined conventions and troupes in your film and critique your film accordingly;
(b) Research the film (budget, success, production company, director) and incorporate information into your essay that informs the reader’s understanding of the film; and
(c) guided by the notes you took during your viewing about how and how well the cinematic storytelling resulted in the reaction you identified in your lede, write a 750-1000 word essay that critically reviews the story – that is, the screenplay (mention the screenwriter) – as well as the cinematic storytelling – that is, the production values (mention the director, cinematographer, and anyone else deemed worthy), and the performances (the key actors), all within the context of genre criticism.
Follow our format of lede, descriptive paragraph (storyline), and critical analysis of the story and the storytelling, but incorporate the critical evaluation of the cinematic storytelling in accordance with the genre of the film. In other words, your critical explanations for how the film made you feel the way you did (as stated in the lede) will be grounded in the film’s genre and its ability to meet genre expectations.
Audience: Readers of The Plain Dealer. Assume that your work appears in the entertainment section of the newspaper. Write accordingly.
Basic Requirements: This essay must be word-processed with proper spelling, grammar and sentence structure.
Include a title.
Do not write about a film you saw sometime prior to engaging in this module. It is important that the images, impressions and descriptions of the film be fresh and vivid. Your final draft must be submitted with a word count and an attached list of all research sources.