Comments on: Chocolate Kicks

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:28:36 +0000

Saw a poster for the movie while walking down Kennedy Blvd last week—-no, didn’t go into rent it.

By: Mitch Conners

Mitch Conners — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:39:10 +0000

David, I’d say having 20 years of experience with the kung-fu genre and having professionally written on the subject, I know what I am talking about. I could have gone into detail about what elements were cribbed from different source, but this is hardly the proper forum. Sometimes being able to generalize is a good thing. And honestly, the movie didn’t interest me enough to want to write an essay about it.

I just didn’t think it was a good movie. I’m glad you did.

By: David

David — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:53:50 +0000

Mitch Conners, you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to martial arts movies. The action in Chocolate wasn’t just inspired by Jackie Chan; Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda also performs fight scenes inspired by Bruce Lee, Jet Li, and Panom Yeerum (”Tony Jaa”). Yes, Jackie Chan does more impressive acrobatic stunts – but the actual martial arts fighting was great, and very entertaining. I just saw this movie last night and was very impressed with the variety and skill exhibited in the martial arts choreography.

However, you are right, the autism is just a gimmick to explain why she can learn all these skills without any formal training – just by watching others perform them. But this movie certainly provides a more satisfying (and more believable) female action hero than western movies like Kill Bill.

By: Mitch Conners

Mitch Conners — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:50:33 +0000

I watched this movie a few weeks back and was completely unimpressed. The Autism is just a gimmick and the action was wanting. Apparently they were inspired by Jackie Chan (re: the outtakes during the credits), but they simply did not have the skill and speed to pull it off.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:00:50 +0000

No, something’s not working on my blog. I’ve been writing tech support—– sigh.

By: Norah

Norah — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:58:59 +0000

This is completely off topic, but…
it seems the ‘recent comments’ and ‘recent posts’ sections on the right are not updating? (at least for me).

Is that something on my side?

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:49:16 +0000

I liked the hero angle for sure and the notion of whatever is “special” about the character as a strength. But it also seemed that autism was somewhat tangential to the main character.

By: Regan

Regan — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:11:19 +0000

There’s a video clip on YouTube, but it’s not family friendly and I’m not sure how I feel about the trailer boast of “the injuries are real!“.

While non-victim role models are a good thing, I think the idea of the fly-eating, m&m chomping, savantic martial arts master, even in the trailer, is a little too close to a parody “hook” for me to like. (Dustin Hoffman’s character dragging out every savant stereotype in Rainman was enough). This seems of the same vein. It might be fun if you like this kind of entertainment, and “Chocolate” seems to be getting raves as a good martial arts film, but again, I believe, sets people up for unrealistic expectations.
I would probably better enjoy seeing a portrayal of an autistic hero for being…just a real person who accomplishes wonderful, but real things. That’s where Clare playing Temple might go one better.

But opinions may differ.