Chocolate–A Movie Review

Normally when I do a movie review, I do a review about movie that is actually playing in the theaters at the time I make my post.  This review is an exception because it is about a movie that was released in 2008 and apparently only played in seven U.S. movie theaters.

The name of the movie is Chocolate.   It is currently available for rental and purchase through Amazon and Netflix.  It may also be available on BlockBuster.  The bottom line is that this Thai martial arts movie is worth checking out for two reasons.

The first reason is that this is a martial arts movie that has an extremely talented female lead.  The second reason is that this movie deals with a subject that’s generally not found in this movie genre – autism.  Now I want to be clear about this. Don’t get this movie thinking that you’re going to see a compelling story about autism.  This movie is NOT that movie, but autism is a plot point.

This movie is about a young autistic girl named Zen, played by Thai fighting sensation JeeJa Yanin, who learns martial arts by watching television. There are parts of this movie that will break your heart and there are parts which will have you jumping up and yelling,  “Oh, crap,” when you see what happens on the screen.  JeeJa Yanin channels Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and other martial artists in one unbelievable mash-up.

A caveat: This movie is violent, but the choreography of the fight scenes is amazing. And believe me, you will be stunned when you realize that all of the fight scenes were done without wires or stunt doubles and many times as a continuous shot.

This movie is not perfect and is sometimes difficult to follow, even with sub-titles.  Yet, if you make the investment of your time in this flick, you will be rewarded with a fun and satisfying movie.

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