6.25.08:: Chocolate

By Matthew Ishitani

With the rise of Thai martial arts movies, there's been a great deal of letdown as far as story lines. While "Ong-Bak" and "Tom Yum Goong" were both explosive in nature, their plots borrowed the same stencil. "Chocolate," the latest from director Prachya Pinkaew and choreographer Panna Rittikrai (of the previously mentioned films), pays back these generic plots with a number of absurdities, ultimately culminating in the introduction of JeeJa Yanin, the proposed female counterpart of Tony Jaa.

The star-crossed romance of a chain-smoking Thai "Beatrix Kiddo" (Ammara Siripong) and an imported Yakuza boss (Hiroshi Abe) produces an autistic, martial arts absorbing daughter Zen (Yanin) who craves chocolate candies and fears bugs. Zen's mother undergoes brutal changes when her lover returns to Japan while her former boss (Pongpat Wachirabunjong), and his team of trans-gendered assassins abuse her. As Zen flourishes into a fighter, her mother succumbs to poverty and lung cancer. Zen decides to collect on her mother's debts in order to pay for cancer treatment, eventually resorting to the killer instinct inherited from her parents.

"Chocolate" moves extremely fast, with most of its action reserved for the last 45 minutes. The action sequences are memorable, the longest lasting over 20-minutes and with four-tier set-up, and there are an adequate amount of guns this time around. The lighting dictates the general mood of every scene, with soft, sunlit mornings and drab, fluorescent nights reminiscent of a Wong Kar-Wai film. It should be comforting that Yanin's first lead role is that of a mental unstable person, since the audience won't be expecting anything more than a physical performance. However, she does have her moments, howling like Bruce Lee and nudging her severely beaten enemies that owe her mother money.

Rittikrai's choreography is as tight as ever, and Yanin is capable of keeping up. The acting is decent enough, but the stability of the plot is instead held together by its rich context. Pinkaew's cinematography is as engaging as it was with "Tom Yum Goong," hovering about large sets and even weaving through them. The stunts in this film border on the irresponsible, with cross-fires of cleavers and people falling off of buildings. While the film is advertised as another wire-less martial arts film, I'm sure they had the decency to fit safety measures to the stuntman that fell 30 feet to the asphalt. I hope so, at least.

"Chocolate" seems more of a serious story-telling effort for Pinkaew and doesn't go easy on the violence. Considering that Yanin performed all of her own stunts, the film is very engaging. There's an intense sense of danger watching a young woman doing what Jackie Chan and Tony Jaa do, especially in her first big role. "Chocolate" has a bittersweet storyline with ultra-realistic action the likes of a "Bourne" movie. It's definitely worth a look, if not a buy.

What do you think? Email kalamakua.org@gmail.com with your comments.