As a teenager and while in college I flirted with learning taekwondo but never got serious about it. But I enjoy martial arts movies and over the weekend we watched a great one we got from Netflix.
Chocolate is a Thai action movie directed Prachya Pinkaew. Pinkaew also directed Ong-bak and Tom yum goong, both of which I’ve seen and like.
The plot in Chocolate is kind of hokey (autistic girl learns martial arts from Bruce Lee movies and collects mob money to pay for her mother’s medicine) but the movie succeeds because of its star, Jeeja Yanin.
Chocolate rests squarely on Yanin’s tiny shoulders. She trained for the movie for two years and it shows. Her skills are really impressive and the fight choreography makes the most of them. While we were watching the movie I kept gasping in amazement during the fight scenes. It’s really fun to watch this tiny little girl kick butt. I’m looking forward to seeing what she does next.