Director Prachya Pinkaew, a martial arts specialist, gives us a kickboxing movie with attitude: Chocolate. The hero is a teenage girl Zen played by 24 year old Yanin "Jeeja" Vismistananda. The thin plot involves her fund raising efforts for her ill mother Zin (Ammara Siripong). A case of Zin and Zen.
This movie has everything: Yakuza gangsters; glitzy transvestite Thai mobsters; autism; samurai sword duels; novel fight sets. Not to mention hundreds of fights and an ample sufficiency of blood. Some of it's real as the closing credits include a black and white montage of accident clips from the shooting of these extravaganza clashes. Pinkaew doesn’t just rely on computer graphics. Stars and stunts alike share the scars. He also pays homage to Tarantino with a Kill Bill 3 scene to die for. There is even an allusion to Indiana Jones. (No animals were hurt in the making of this film.)
Not my usual genre but it surpasses the little I’ve seen of Jackie, Charlie and Jet over the years. Its popularity is evident in the 600,000 + views, plus 500 comments, that the YouTube video above has received.
A must for all the action fans who enjoy a good fantasy. There is no shortage of movies about genocide at the festival if you want real violence.
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