Chocolate (2008)

Fighting! If there's one thing to be learned from Prachya Pinkaew's Chocolate, that's pretty much it. Awesome, I know. Zen (JeeJa Yanin) is the result of an unprecedented and unsanctioned romance: a powerful Thai crime family's daughter, Zin (Ammara Siripong), and an unwelcome yakuza member, Masashi (Hiroshi Abe). After Masashi is exiled back to Japan, Zin escapes her family and raises her daughter alone. As she matures it is found that Zen is autistic, giving her limited understanding of the world's complexities, simplified communication abilities, and an incredibly useful hyper-awareness that allows her to catch anything that's thrown in her direction and naturally fight really well. I wonder what kinds of shenanigans could these skills produce.

Zin is going through chemotherapy but can't pay her medical bills. Zen's best/only friend Mangmoom (Taphon Phopwandee) finds a list of people who owe Zin money, and so embarks on a quest to get it all back. Zen accompanies him, often utilizing her mad fighting techniques to get it, and sometimes going out on her own at night. Eventually their activities get back to Zin's family, who seek revenge on their estranged daughter and her former lover. It all comes to a head with lots of minions and swords and guns and elbow jabs and high kicks and... autism?

I hadn't seen Ong-bak or anything else by Pinkaew, so I didn't really know what I was in for. The action is absolutely amazing- so well-choreographed, and surprisingly engrossing. The fights all took place in different settings, from a butcher's back room to an urban rooftop. It was fluid and fast, incorporating both humor and gore at varying intervals. So great! And scarily it was all real- no stunt doubles, no CGI, no wires. Yeesh. JeeJa Yanin was so kickass as Zen, and it was just really nice to see such a capable female action hero who never had to fall back on sex appeal. And it was good to have Mangmoom there providing that chubby-best-friend comic relief, an archetype which apparently transcends nationality. The screenwriters handled the autism aspect pretty well, too, I thought (though I am far from an expert). It wasn't gimmicky or overly dramatic, but more like "Yes, she has a different way of perceiving things, but let's not dwell on the negative side of that and instead highlight her really cool skills. On to the fighting".

My biggest issue with Chocolate is the structure of the exposition and generally how the plot was presented. The opening portions of the movie were very confusing for me, and I didn't really know who anyone was or how they related to one another for a while. I still don't really know how Mangmoom played into their family. Maybe he lived with them? Maybe they adopted him after they saw him being beat up in the street one time? Question mark. Various other small things were never explained. The film is definitely not meant to be plot-heavy, so it wasn't a huge drawback; it was just frustrating sometimes. I think the script was overly ambiguous on some subjects while remaining fairly complex, a combination which felt out of place in a pretty fun action movie. Also, be warned: This movie is indeed pretty damn rad, but there are several times when it gets way serious. I didn't expect the ending to be so death-laden, I guess.

4/5