Thai martial arts sensation 'Chocolate': Review
Chocolate (2008) Director - Prachya Pinkaew Reviewed by: Darren Cenerini One of my favorite genres of movies are the martial arts movies. Films like Enter The Dragon, Supercop, Iron Monkey and many more classics are a guilty pleasure of mine. I love movies with an epic, moving story more than most people, but even I cannot deny that sometimes you just want to watch people get smacked around. A few years back martial arts movies seemed to be at an all time low, relying more on wireframe stunts and CGI than actual martial arts. A man named Prachya Pinkaew stepped up and presented us with his first studio film, Ong Bak, starring now legendary Muay Thai fighter Tony Jaa. The absolutely stunning fight scenes and disregard for anyone's safety by seldom using safety equipment had me speechless. This was it. Martial arts movies were back, and hopefully here to stay. We were then presented with Tom Yum Goong, the follow up to Ong Bak and once again it took me many days after initial viewing to pick my jaw up off the floor. This year, Prachya's third film, Chocolate, was released but had a noticeable absence of Tony Jaa. Taking his place was a newcomer; a female fighter with roots in Taekwondo named Jeeja Yanin. Could she possibly be as good as Tony? The story for Chocolate is actually pretty well fleshed out and complicated, a nice change from the standard motives such as "revenge" or "searching for someone/something". We're introduced to Zin, a tatooed debt collector/fighter/extortionist who works for a Thai crime lord. A Yakuza gangster (played by Hiroshi Abe, Japan's answer to Samuel L. Jackson, at least where "sheer number of films appeared in" applies) is sent to Thailand on a mission, but happens to fall in love with Zin and the two then quickly hop into the sack together. The Thai crime lord finds out and is none too pleased, so he sends our Yakuza lovemachine packing. A few months go by and then Zin realizes she's pregnant. She wants a better life for her child so she leaves the crime syndicate without telling anyone. Flash forward a few years now, and we see that Zin has given birth to an autistic girl who she names Zen. Zen has a keen sense of reflex and hearing, and can concentrate so well that she can do anything upon viewing it for herself. When Zin falls ill and is told she has cancer, Zen has a breakdown and accidentally discovers a black book filled with names and addresses of people who have outstanding debts to her mother. Realizing she needs money for her mother's medical fees, Zen embarks on a quest to collect as much money as she can to save her mother, using what she's learned from watching (no joke) Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee movies on TV. The first thing I noticed when watching Chocolate was the acting and story which were surprisingly very good. Jeeja plays Zen very believably, especially when she realizes what she's done after a fight and reverts back to her shy, clingy self. Zin is also good as the strong mother who's trying to cope with her illness and raise her daughter, and when Hiroshi Abe is re-introduced to the story his anger and passion is very apparent and we feel compelled to root for the family to win in the end. The script as a whole is fairly well written and its flow from scene to scene is great, combining the fight scenes and "cool down" scenes perfectly. Something else I did not expect considering this is a martial arts movie was the drama contained in the film throughout the whole thing. In Prachya's previous films we felt very little sympathy for the characters as they were pretty two dimensional and hollow, but I was concerned for the heroes this time around, and I even teared up a little during some of the key scenes. But enough about the story. We're not watching this film for that, are we? The main question that should be addressed is "Does this film keep up the ass kicking we've seen so far?" The answer is yes. I must give Jeeja a standing ovation for not only delivering an impressive performance as our autistic heroine, but also for delivering bone crushing kick after bone crushing kick. The fight scenes were once again amazingly choreographed and contain many segments that will have you nudging your friends and asking "Did you just see that?" Jeeja's stuntwork for the most part doesn't exactly match up with Tony's skills, but she does do some things that require amazing amounts of agility and strength. For example, during one fight scene she performs a flying double knee that sends both her and her opponent into a sewage pipe that is no larger in diameter than a standard manhole. In another she runs and slides, bending backwards so her head almost touches the ground and continues to slide under a glass coffee table to avoid an attack, making most skilled limbo players bow their head in shame. The fight scenes themselves are all incredibly entertaining and the locales range from inside an ice factory to an outdoors fish market, always making use of the environments and types of people and objects that would realistically be found there. The real show stealer though was the final fight scene which takes place on a multi level building with concrete ledges extending from the front of the building itself and loads of neon signs and metal balconies littering the area as well. Zen has to fight her way through tons of thugs while jumping from obstacle to obstacle and finding ways around said obstacles as well, all the while tossing defeated opponents off the sides of the ledges (or right through them at times). It's a very tense scene that contains some of the most ridiculous pratfalling and breakfalling ever put to the silver screen. It had me praying for the cast's safety and each fall has the most tremendous impact and sound to match that I guarantee you'll be wincing and cringing through the whole thing. I only have one very minor gripe with the film, which happens to be a few of Jeeja's techniques. She performs a few moves during the film that look very practiced and slow (one is in the trailer, watch for her handstand kick). This is very minor however, as whenever this happens she does something completely amazing before you have time to point it out. Chocolate pulls no punches, delivers the goods and even has a pretty good story filled with interesting characters, to boot. To say anything more of the film would truly ruin the experience, so I'll only reiterate that this is a wonderful piece of martial arts filmmaking and if you consider yourself a fan of this genre by any standard, then this is required viewing. Die hard fans will even see the homages to such greats as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and yes, even Tony Jaa. I can only hope that one day Tony Jaa and Jeeja Yanin will make a film together and show everyone what the next generation of action stars can do.
Chocolate (2008) Director - Prachya Pinkaew Reviewed by: Darren Cenerini One of my favorite genres of movies are the martial arts movies. Films like Enter The Dragon, Supercop, Iron Monkey and many more classics are a guilty pleasure of mine. I love movies with an epic, moving story more than most people, but even I cannot deny that sometimes you just want to watch people get smacked around. A few years back martial arts movies seemed to be at an all time low, relying more on wireframe stunts and CGI than actual martial arts. A man named Prachya Pinkaew stepped up and presented us with his first studio film, Ong Bak, starring now legendary Muay Thai fighter Tony Jaa. The absolutely stunning fight scenes and disregard for anyone's safety by seldom using safety equipment had me speechless. This was it. Martial arts movies were back, and hopefully here to stay. We were then presented with Tom Yum Goong, the follow up to Ong Bak and once again it took me many days after initial viewing to pick my jaw up off the floor. This year, Prachya's third film, Chocolate, was released but had a noticeable absence of Tony Jaa. Taking his place was a newcomer; a female fighter with roots in Taekwondo named Jeeja Yanin. Could she possibly be as good as Tony? The story for Chocolate is actually pretty well fleshed out and complicated, a nice change from the standard motives such as "revenge" or "searching for someone/something". We're introduced to Zin, a tatooed debt collector/fighter/extortionist who works for a Thai crime lord. A Yakuza gangster (played by Hiroshi Abe, Japan's answer to Samuel L. Jackson, at least where "sheer number of films appeared in" applies) is sent to Thailand on a mission, but happens to fall in love with Zin and the two then quickly hop into the sack together. The Thai crime lord finds out and is none too pleased, so he sends our Yakuza lovemachine packing. A few months go by and then Zin realizes she's pregnant. She wants a better life for her child so she leaves the crime syndicate without telling anyone. Flash forward a few years now, and we see that Zin has given birth to an autistic girl who she names Zen. Zen has a keen sense of reflex and hearing, and can concentrate so well that she can do anything upon viewing it for herself. When Zin falls ill and is told she has cancer, Zen has a breakdown and accidentally discovers a black book filled with names and addresses of people who have outstanding debts to her mother. Realizing she needs money for her mother's medical fees, Zen embarks on a quest to collect as much money as she can to save her mother, using what she's learned from watching (no joke) Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee movies on TV. The first thing I noticed when watching Chocolate was the acting and story which were surprisingly very good. Jeeja plays Zen very believably, especially when she realizes what she's done after a fight and reverts back to her shy, clingy self. Zin is also good as the strong mother who's trying to cope with her illness and raise her daughter, and when Hiroshi Abe is re-introduced to the story his anger and passion is very apparent and we feel compelled to root for the family to win in the end. The script as a whole is fairly well written and its flow from scene to scene is great, combining the fight scenes and "cool down" scenes perfectly. Something else I did not expect considering this is a martial arts movie was the drama contained in the film throughout the whole thing. In Prachya's previous films we felt very little sympathy for the characters as they were pretty two dimensional and hollow, but I was concerned for the heroes this time around, and I even teared up a little during some of the key scenes. But enough about the story. We're not watching this film for that, are we? The main question that should be addressed is "Does this film keep up the ass kicking we've seen so far?" The answer is yes. I must give Jeeja a standing ovation for not only delivering an impressive performance as our autistic heroine, but also for delivering bone crushing kick after bone crushing kick. The fight scenes were once again amazingly choreographed and contain many segments that will have you nudging your friends and asking "Did you just see that?" Jeeja's stuntwork for the most part doesn't exactly match up with Tony's skills, but she does do some things that require amazing amounts of agility and strength. For example, during one fight scene she performs a flying double knee that sends both her and her opponent into a sewage pipe that is no larger in diameter than a standard manhole. In another she runs and slides, bending backwards so her head almost touches the ground and continues to slide under a glass coffee table to avoid an attack, making most skilled limbo players bow their head in shame. The fight scenes themselves are all incredibly entertaining and the locales range from inside an ice factory to an outdoors fish market, always making use of the environments and types of people and objects that would realistically be found there. The real show stealer though was the final fight scene which takes place on a multi level building with concrete ledges extending from the front of the building itself and loads of neon signs and metal balconies littering the area as well. Zen has to fight her way through tons of thugs while jumping from obstacle to obstacle and finding ways around said obstacles as well, all the while tossing defeated opponents off the sides of the ledges (or right through them at times). It's a very tense scene that contains some of the most ridiculous pratfalling and breakfalling ever put to the silver screen. It had me praying for the cast's safety and each fall has the most tremendous impact and sound to match that I guarantee you'll be wincing and cringing through the whole thing. I only have one very minor gripe with the film, which happens to be a few of Jeeja's techniques. She performs a few moves during the film that look very practiced and slow (one is in the trailer, watch for her handstand kick). This is very minor however, as whenever this happens she does something completely amazing before you have time to point it out. Chocolate pulls no punches, delivers the goods and even has a pretty good story filled with interesting characters, to boot. To say anything more of the film would truly ruin the experience, so I'll only reiterate that this is a wonderful piece of martial arts filmmaking and if you consider yourself a fan of this genre by any standard, then this is required viewing. Die hard fans will even see the homages to such greats as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and yes, even Tony Jaa. I can only hope that one day Tony Jaa and Jeeja Yanin will make a film together and show everyone what the next generation of action stars can do.