Chocolate. I mentioned this movie before in the Tony Jaa is a Bad Ass thread. So I won't repost the trailer. Instead let me just get right into the review.
The story starts out with some woman, and some dude making a deal with a gang lord that as long as the guy and gal aren't ever together (cause the gang lord wants her), he won't kill them. Well here's the part where there's a whole bunch of love and gun shooting. They keep getting together even though the gang lord said not to, and the gang lord keeps doing things to the broad to teach her not to hang out with the other guy.
Well eventually she gets knocked up by the guy, but tells the dude that she has to leave him. Then when she gives birth she finds out her daughter is autistic. So she keeps sending letters to the dad about how hard it is and how much she misses him and why she had to leave him and sentimental shit like that. Still, about 20 minutes in, no fighting.
So the gang lord finds out that she's sending the father letters, and he comes over to her house and chops her toe off as a reminder. Now that the gang lord knows where she lives she decides to move. The autistic girl keeps growing up, and starts showing off her weird "power" to eat flies out of the air, and catch anything that's thrown at her. While walking home from work the mom sees some fat ass getting beat up so she adopts him. Apparently he either didn't have parents, or they just didn't give a shit that someone up and took their kid. Either way he starts helping out raising the autistic girl, mainly by throwing shit at her so she has to catch it. Then he takes her into the city and shows her off for money.
You also see around this time that the girl can watch the Thai boxers, or kung-fu flicks and then emulate the moves. She watches Ong Bak and The Protector, but there's some other ones in there too. So now apparently she knows kung fu.
So the fat kids keeps throwing shit at her, she keeps being autistic and eating the Thai version of M&M's (hey, maybe that's why it's called Chocolate!). You learn that the mom is really in debt cause the gang lord kept taking all her money and shit, and that a lot of people owe her money. On top of that she gets cancer so now she really needs the dough.
BUT. FINALLY! A Fight Scene! It's pretty short though. Some dude throws a knife at her during one of the shows, the fat kids yells, the gang of kids comes out, and the autistic girl kicks their asses. There were some cool moves, but like I said it was pretty short.
So now that the mom has cancer the fat kid and the autistic girl go around to all the people whose addresses the fat kid found when he was snooping around and found the moms little book of people who owe her money apparently. After failing miserably, the autistic girl FINALLY learns that she's gonna have to kick some ass to get that cash. So she does.
This is the beginning of the fighting part of this movie. Up till now it was pretty much just story. So the girl and the fat kid go from person to person getting money so they can buy their mom medicine for her cancer. Eventually the gang lord is like "what the fuck" cause the autistic girl is just fucking up all his gangs. So he tries to get the mom killed, and the dad gets a letter from the mom, and then the fat kid gets kid napped, and then the mom and the autistic girl go to meet the gang lord to finish their business. In the mean time the dad is on his way to kick some ass too. There's some more fighting, and the autistic girl definitely has some cool moves, but you can really tell that she hasn't been fighting all her life cause the moves just don't seem to flow like they do when you're watching Tony Jaa. Apparently she trained for only 2 years before shooting the movie, and she kept training throughout the movie for another 2 years. So for 4 years she's really good, and she does manage to show off many different types of fighting styles, not just Muay Thai.
So there's a bunch of fighting going on and then when it looks like the autistic girl kicked everyone's ass, some young guy comes out and it seems like he's mentally retarded too. I think he has tourettes cause he's twitching and flailing his arms and shit. Here, check it out:
Yeah it's a pretty cool fight. I dunno exactly what style the people are fighting in, and I'm not exactly sure that the video description is totally accurate. So then that fight happens and the dad comes in and then further shit ensues. I'll stop there.
So if I had to rate the movie out of 5 stars I'd give it 3 aaannnnd a half. Yeah 3 and a half. Like I said, the fighting was alright. Not as fluid as other martial arts movies, but still really commendable seeing as how she didn't grow up practicing martial arts. The story was actually pretty well done, and didn't have a bunch of plot holes. But overall the movie didn't really meet my expectations. I'm glad I only Netflixed it instead of buying it. I almost did too after just watching the trailer.
So, if you wanna watch a movie with a decent story and pretty good fight scenes where the moves are real and the injuries are real, than watch Chocolate. But only if you've already watched Ong Bak and The Protector first. I got a feeling that girls would actually like to watch the movie. So there's always the chance you could use it as date movie.
So once again, Chocolate: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.
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