"An autistic woman with powerful martial art skills looks to settle her ailing mother’s debts by seeking out the ruthless gangs that owe her family money."

Such is one of the fairly accurate summaries of Chocolate that I found on the web.

Last night, while my wife was on her way to North Carolina, I found myself at Best Buy looking for something to occupy my evening. In the absence of strippers, I wound up perusing the DVD aisle. Being a fan of chop-socky action flicks I picked one up (as well as two anime box sets).

The mistake that I made was that I decided to put it back and pay $10 more the Blu-Ray version.

What starts off as a decent, somewhat cheesy action/love story turns into…well, a cheesy martial arts movie. The story goes like this: Zin is part of the Thai mafia and she falls in love with a Yakuza. They have a relationship, she sends him home to prevent a gang war and doesn’t tell him that she’s pregs. She then raises her daughter, Zen, who, as the American trailer puts it, is "a girl with special needs…the need to kick ass".

They take in a young boy named Mammo. Zin moves her family to an apartment that is next to a Muy Thai school. Zen watches and learns. She also learns how to fight by watching Tony Jaa films on television and by playing video games.
Eventually, it comes to light that Zin is sick with something. This ailment requires money so Mammo and Zen go out to collect from people that owe Zin money. Ass kicking ensues.

I suppose the part that really sticks in my craw is that I’m expected to believe that Jeeja Yanin, the young lead actress, has autism. I suppose to her credit she tries to portray some form or ‘Rain Man’-esque version of autism. In fact, watching this made me think of the following from Tropic Thunder:

Wake up, Hop Hop, indeed.

So the story is a little flakey and the acting is a tad questionable. Interspersed through this is some English spoken by Asian actors. I always find it interesting when there are English lines spoken in martial arts movies from Asia. It makes me wonder if the actors know what they’re saying or if they’re just saying things phoenetically.

Anyhow, here’s a clip from the final fight scene of the movie. Here you’ll see some of the climax but, honestly, the ending seems to drag on and on and on and on.

Did you like the dueling autistic kids? I thought the kid in the track suit was going to start screaming ‘Timmmm-may!’. Listen, yes there are some cases of autism which are extreme and have a profound impact on an invidual’s ability to communicate or act ‘normally’. This kid seemingly had autism, tourette’s syndrome and a bad case of the Capoeira/break dancing disease.

All in all, it was an ok movie. After watching old Jackie Chan (Police Story 1 & 2), Jet Li(the Once Upon A Time In China series and Fong Sai Yuk) as well as Tony Jaa films I just can’t seem to get into the Jeeja Yanin rage. On the chance that I’m being sexist, I just can’t seem to remember ANY movie with a female martial artist as the lead that got me excited.

Yes. I’m spoiled by the penis.

But it’s true. Jeeja’s movements seem overly forced and choreographed. This may be because the producers have opted not to do any wire work. But scenes just don’t seem to flow well. Where as any of the previous male martial artists make it look effortless Jeeja makes it look like she’s walking waste high in yogurt.

There is one scene in the movie where Jeeja is fighting a boss. As she runs towards him about to kick his ass he picks up a wooden shipping palette and throws it at her. Yanin immediately slide on her knees with her back to the ground beneath a glass table. If you watch carefully and do the math in your head you’ll notice a small problem: at the speed with which Jeeja was sliding she wouldn’t have cleared the table. However, the director quickly cuts from her sliding to the next shot where she’s already standing up and fighting.
That pretty much sums it up. For me ‘Chocolate’ just comes up short.

I give it 2.5 Puzzle pieces out of 5.
(How you like my schtick? Puzzle pieces, get it?)