Based in Thailand but with both a Thai and Japanese cast, we are introduced to Chocolate with the beginning of a Romeo and Juliet style affair between Thai mafia gang member Zin and her soon to be Japanese Yakuza husband, Masashi. Severely angering her obsessive ex Gangster No. 8, Zin tells her husband to return to Japan in order to avoid an all out gang war.

Zin then arrives in her new meagre surroundings to single parenthood (one wonders why she didn’t simply follow her husband to Japan) where she gives birth to an autistic daughter, Zen. Zen cares for her daughter and along with adopted waif and stray, Moom, we see Zen grow up watching martial arts films and copying the moves she sees at the neighbouring Muay Thai school. Meanwhile, Zen’s mother develops leukaemia and in order to pay for her treatment, Moom and Zen perform street theatre tricks with Zen using her sharp ability to catch balls from any angle. When Moom discovers that Zin is actually owed a lot of money from people, they go after the debtors with Zen using her new-found martial arts ability to extract money from the reluctant thugs.

Gangster No. 8 becomes aware of Zen and Moom’s debt collecting activity and realising that Zin has been in contact with her husband in Japan, goes after the family unit in order to generally wreck their lives. Zen then engages in a battle to save her mother, Moom, her returning father and her own life by fighting off wave after wave of Gangster No. 8 thugs.

Review

Made by the same director behind Ong Bak and Warrior King, when you break the seal of Chocolate’s DVD cover you have a fair idea of the high velocity martial arts action to come and Chocolate has it in spades. Much like Tony Jaa in Pinkaew’s previous films, Jeeja Yanin produces sharp and stylish martial arts using very little special effects and doing the majority of her own stunts. The girl can act as well as she delivers a convincing performance of an autistic girl who copies her martial arts knowledge from watching action films and computer games.

We spend the first part of the film with an in depth introduction to the characters’ background, thus giving the audience a reason to root for Zen and pity the inevitable tragedy awaiting her mother. The film references were not lost on us either, with the obvious indication to Zen’s watching of Ong Bak, the Bruce Lee yelps as she first starts to utilise her kicks and the Tarantino style wave of Crazy88 thugs that Zen must dispatch a la Kill Bill.

One could comment upon the ethics of one of the final battles being between a girl with Autism and what appears to be a youth with Cerebral Palsy but with martial arts abilities such as theirs, you can be sure that they are perfectly capable of standing up for themselves. The scene that stands out the most in both eye-watering action and production values is when Zen enters an abattoir, conquers her fear of flies with the help of her friend Moom and an electric fly swat, and then batters everyone in a precarious fashion with the baddies being skewered in various ways.

Chocolate is a firm recommendation for a short, original and brutal piece of martial arts film-making. We can only hope to see more of the teeny but acrobatic Jeeja Yanin who has given a refreshing take on the martial arts hero.