If someone were going to remake Chocolate, the pitch would invariably be something like this: Imagine if Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man was a girl-and instead of being really good at math, she was really good at beating the crap out of people. That's Chocolate in its most simplistic terms-it's a flick about an autistic girl who has a knack for picking up fighting moves simply by watching them. It's also one of the most impressive Thai martial arts films I've seen, boasting excellent fight choreography that places it alongside some of China's best films.
The story is simplistic. Zen (Jeeja Yanin) is a child born of a forbidden love (and why, exactly, this love is forbidden is never made completely clear...). Her father's Japanese, her mother is from Thailand, and she's born autistic. Dad returns to Japan while Zen's mother cares for her. Eventually they take in another kid-Moom, played by Taphon Phopwandee-and a small family is formed. The problem is that Zen's mother has cancer and they can't afford to pay for her treatment. Moom and Zen stumble across an old book with listings of men who owe Mom money (they don't realize she used to be involved in the criminal underworld) and set out to collect it. This sets the stage for young Zen to beat the living crap out of a whole lot of stuntmen in a very inventive fashion.
Before we get to the good stuff-of which there is plenty-let's just get the things Chocolate doesn't do well out of the way now. Like many martial arts films, the story is little more than a device designed to use melodrama to get us from one fight sequence to the next. There's more going on here than I covered in the plot synopsis above, but the tale is so poorly told that I stopped caring about keeping up with it. In some ways, it feels like a Thai version of Kill Bill-complete with a David Carradine wannabe and adding in a group of "ladyboys" who serve as henchmen. Chronicling every loose narrative thread that this film never bothers to tie into a bow seems almost counterproductive, but rest assured that there are questions left unaddressed at the end.
The film's other glaring shortcoming is that it's not even very good at telling the generic story in the first place. The first thirty minutes of Chocolate are a chore-filmed in an almost episodic way that distances the viewer from the characters and the action. Even Zen, who we should identify with instantly, isn't someone we can relate to in these early scenes. Because of this pacing issue, making it through the first act of the movie can be almost as challenging as the hordes of bad guys Zen will face in acts two and three...
However, once we reach the second act, the problems disappear-or are at least obscured by all the butt-kicking happening onscreen. The film becomes a series of lengthy and breathtaking set-pieces after the thirty minute mark. Sure, there's the occasional break for a story moment here and there, but it's nothing like the opening-which is all story and very little combat.
Combat is where Chocolate really shines. Jeeja Yanin is an amazing performer and has certainly catapaulted herself into the martial arts spotlight based on this performance alone. The early scenes are relatively simple, although they do feature some Bruce Lee homages, but by the time we arrive at the bone-crunching twenty minute long climactic showdown, Yanin is showcasing all of her talents. Some of the moves on display in the lengthy last battle are amazing. Between the elaborate choreography (which left Yanin and many stuntmen hurt, as the outtakes during the credits demonstrate) and Yanin's athleticism, Chocolate winds up being a worth companion piece to Ong Bak-not quite as good as a whole, but a definite treat for anyone who loves a film featuring fantastically-staged hand-to-hand violence.
I'm by no means an authority on Thai martial arts cinema, but I can say based on what I've seen that Chocolate is one of the titles that I'd recommend to anyone interested in becoming more familiar Thailand's action cinema scene. This isn't a perfect film by any stretch, but the fight sequences more than make up for all of the other shortcomings-and then some.