Film: Chocolate
Release date: 3rd November 2008
Certificate: 18
Running time: 89 mins
Director: Prachya Pinkaew
Starring: JeeJa Yanin, Hiroshi Abe, Pongpat Wachirabunjong, Taphon Phopwandee, Ammara Siripong
Genre: Martial Arts/Action/Drama/Crime
Studio: Showbox/Cine Asia
Format: DVD
Country: Thailand
From Prachya Pinkaew, the director behind Ong-Bak, and rated highly by Quentin Tarantino, one of America’s few contemporary filmmaking jewels whose penchant for violence is renowned, Chocolate was always going to deliver in the bone-crunching violence stakes, but be patient!
A Thai mafia boss’s girlfriend, Zin (Ammara Siripong), strikes up an affair with a rival Japanese gangster, Yakuza Masashi (Hiroshi Abe), following a standoff between the two crews. However, when this union is discovered, both are forced apart, with Masashi returning to his homeland whilst Zin delvers their baby alone - and without his knowledge.
Cue a melodramatic, badly scored and overacted opening half-hour that will test most viewers’ patience, as we discover that her daughter is born autistic – another blow, but not the last for the now isolated Zin, who is struggling to make ends meet.
However, her autism has resulted in superhero-like powers, with her senses dramatically heightened – something her cousin takes full advantage of, charging crowds to throw balls at her, knowing that her sense of sound and lightning reflexes will allow her to intercept potentially damaging blows from any angle (even when a local gang intervene with knives) – and an ability to replicate with all the force and ferocity the kung fu moves of her favourite movie stars, minus any form of training (other than copying the moves of those training at the nearby martial arts school)…
Of course, this film requires you suspend a vast amount of disbelief, but having stuck with it through the irksome opening section, when Zen has to collect her mother’s old loans to help pay for her cancer treatment, the film’s demented direction is welcome relief – delivering arguably the most impressive fight scenes ever captured on film (minimal blood – even during the swordplay scenes – and hardly graphic, yet shuddering in their authenticity).
JeeJa Yanin is a revelation as Zen. JeeJa spent years training for the role, and this shows – fight scenes (no doubles/stuntmen used, as the credits’ outtakes/injury account proves) are startling in their complexity, and unrelenting in their delivery, as she quickly moves her way through various criminals and their henchmen, whose factories provide the perfect obstacle courses for evermore impressive fight set pieces (the meat factory is particularly nasty, with the addition of hooks – no prizes for guessing the results here - whilst the mid-air splits performed jumping from one storage unit to another is remarkable).
Although the film doesn’t deliver even slightly beyond the kick-ass, and there’s poor character development/a number of plot holes, the actress does manage to impress in the dramatic scenes also as the autistic youngster – highlighting this very real new Asian acting talent, not simply a female version of Tony Jaa.
Not always intentionally, the film delivers a few laughs, with neat comic touches (her Bruce Lee-esque squeals/cries when she first starts fighting), whilst there’s the requisite bungling sidekick in the form of her cousin, who assists her notably at the meat factory, swatting flies whose amplified buzzing is unbearable for the hypersensitive Zen.
The results of her campaign to retrieve her mother’s old loans is predictable and quite heavy, but the final showdown (replete with the inclusion of the Thai mafia boss’s own disabled super fighter offspring), with its nods to classic martial arts films of yore (Fist Of Fury…), is wonderfully choreographed (with many memorable scenes, notably slowing the film down during her rooftop battle when the train passes in the background as her knee impacts on a foe), raises a lot of questions about health & safety regulations in Thailand, and simply leaves the viewer in a state of awe – supported further as the reality of the film’s production is revealed during the closing credits.
For serious fight fans, this is a 5 out of 5, hands down, but taken as a whole, and after that dreadful opening, it’s reluctantly penalised a couple of stars. DH
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