Chocolate is Thai Flavored Goodness

I love Thai Cinema. Sure the women's voices can be a little shrill (trust me) and they don't have hundred of millions dollars for production values but that matters not. If you like martial arts movies these films are to die for. Tony Jaa exploded on the scene a few years back and I literley own every movie he's ever done. These includes some very poor early attempts that resemble bad 70's Hong Kong chop socky. But it was from these early movies that names like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan emerged. And now comes a new name in kick butting, Jeeja Yanin. And she's a girl. A tiny, thin girl. But trust me, you wouldn't want to mess with her.
Auditioning for the awesome Thai film Born To Fight (Buy it tomorrow on Amazon), director Prachya Pinkaew of Ong Bak fame found this slight, really bendy girl who was also one hell of an actress. And boy did he have a part for her.
In Chocolate she plays Zen, a half Japanese/ Thai girl with autism. She has lightning fast reflexes, super hearing and the ability to mimic any fighting style she sees. When her Mom gets cancer, she beats the holy hell out of anybody who gets in her way to collect money from the bad guys to save her mom. Like typical Thai cinema, the beginning may be slow, but unlike their Oriental counterparts, it's to establish a real connection with their characters. In Born to Fight, the first half of the movie introduces the sports and gym athletes so when they are forced to attack the invading hordes of bad guys their skills are clearly defined as are their motives. Plus, the second half of any of these movies is near non stop action. Chocolate is as well with fighting taking place in a warehouse, on the side of a building and an ice factory. Originally the film was going to show footage from Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and then use a split screen to show how well she mimics them. Unfortunately, they were cut out due to copyrights they couldn't get. They are still hinted at in the movie with Bruce Lee moves being used in the ice factory and Jackie Chan in the warehouse but only a real affectionado will get the similarity.
I usually hate autistic characters on the screen. They come across as brattish and difficult (like in real life), but Jeeja does a great job making us care about this person. Only Hoffman and Hanks have really sold us on autistic characters before making her performance even more astounding. I just ordered the sequel which looks even more awesome. I'll review it soon.

4 out of 5 stars