Quickie midnight movie review: Chocolate

Let there be outtakes!

by John P. Meyer

If you're a fan of the old classic pre-Hollywood Jackie Chan acrobatic fight-fest flicks, then drop everything else you had planned and head over to the Inwood for tonight's (Feb. 7) midnight screening of Chocolate. You'll be glad you did.

Chocolate is directed by Prachya Pinkaew, the man responsible for previous Thai actioners Ong-bak (2003) and Tom yum goong (2005). The choreography of the fight scenes brings to mind the jaw-dropping (and, occasionally, jaw-shattering) work done by Sammo Hung on any number of Hong Kong movie sets.

Fuggeddabout the plot, which is a lightweight sick mom/autistic daughter/helpful best friend sort of sappy sentimental thing, and hang in there for the numerous kick-ass set pieces. All you really need to know is that the main character - a skinny adolescent girl named Zen (JeeJa Yanin) - is the autistic daughter of a forbidden love between a Thai crime boss and the Japanese Yakuza freelancer who was trying to horn in on his territory.

Zen has a strong aversion to flies and a fondness for colorful little Skittle-like candies. More to the point, she's a watch-and-learn savant when it comes to fighting: whether it's kickboxers practicing in the courtyard, movies on the TV or video games, all Zen needs to do to master a technique is to watch a few minutes of it as practiced by its masters.

Her fighting skills come to the forefront when her friend Moom (Taphon Phopwandee) discovers a black book which bears the names and amount of debt owed to Zen's sick mom (Ammara Siripong), who used to be a partner of evil Thai crime boss No. 8 (Pongpat Wachirabunjong). Moom and Zen start going around town to collect the debts, though unsurprisingly the debtors aren't anxious to pay up. So Zen kicks their asses, and any other asses that happen to be hanging around working for them. (Which amounts to an awful lot of asses.)

This flurry of debt collecting leads to cleverly-orchestrated and often amusing fight scenes in: an icehouse, a warehouse, a meat processing plant (uh oh - FLIES!), the crime boss's expansive Japanese-influenced living room, and - for the spectacular finale - hanging from an elevated railway six floors up, then swinging from neon signs outside No. 8's apartment building. It's a good ten minutes of window-ledge balancing, improbable abyss-leaping, and (mostly) non-stop multiple-villain smiting, culminating in a thorough taking-apart of bad old No. 8.

Here's the best part, and once again you'll appreciate this more if you're a fan of classic Jackie Chan stuff: there are outtakes over the end credits. Yes, folks, young star JeeJa Yanin is seen getting punched, kicked and cut, as she and other stunt folks sustain inadvertent full contact injuries that require medical attention. Ouch.