Chocolate

C

Directed by Prachya Pinkaew

Prachya Pinkaew, the director of now legendary Thai martial arts film "Ong Bak," delivers an unfortunately yawn inspiring effort that does not justice to its awesome star, dimunitive Jeeja Yanin in her first ever martial arts role.

Yanin plays Zen, the autistic child of Yakuza parents, who subsists on a diet of chocolate and learns martial arts by watching Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies. When Zen's mother tells her that she has been diagnosed with cancer and can't pay her medical bills, Zen and her childhood friend Mangmoom set of to collect on bills owed to her mother. Most of the shady individuals who owe money to Zen's mother, however, have no intention to pay up so Zen finds herself forced to bring the pain in an effort to generate some cash flow.

I'd heard some great things about this film but I must say that I was sorely disappointed. The action sequences are plentiful but I was still somewhat disappointed, maybe because I had memories of Tony Jaa going buck wild in Ong Bak and Jeeja Yanin, although amazing in her own right,just can't match the physicality of someone like Jaa. The film's biggest and most glaring failure, however, is its maudlin, melodramatic subplot that unfortunately comes to dominate the film when it should have just been a simple narrative crutch for the action to lean on. When it comes to martial arts films, the success or failure depends on nothing more than the action sequences. This does not mean that no story should be present but rather that the story should always have second billing and that the movie should concentrate on delivering the action before anything else. "Chocolate" goes through extended periods of time without any action to speak of and the beginning of the film is dominated by a vague backstory involving Zen's father and mother and their criminal backgrounds. Pinkaew's film is also just plain sloppy, from the editing to the acting to the script which further detracts from the often satisfying fight scenes.
The work of Yanin in this film should be commended, however, as the physical toll making this picture took on her is readily obvious, even without the bonus scenes of her injuring herself on multiple occasions that run during the credits. It's too bad her debut had to happen in this lackluster flick but rest assured that Pinkew or some other action director will no doubt find an opportunity to exploit her talents in another, hopefully better film.