Chocolate Kicks
August 28, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Asia, Movies
Be warned. This post contains a disparate slew of references to martial arts (kind of in a Kung Fu Panda vein); chocolate (M & M’s, even); the use of the r word in Tropic Thunder; Thailand; lots of flies. (And autism, but you knew that.)
No, we didn’t once again see Po the Panda executing his moves against an opponent to get that last pad thai noodle or chocolate bar, with insects buzzing in the background. All the items listed in the first paragraph appear in Chocolate, a martial arts movie from Thailand with an autistic heroine who really knows how to kick her way around. From a review on Film School Rejects:
["Tattooed hottie"---that's a quote, please note---Zin] gives birth to an autistic girl she names Zen, and we’re treated to another montage of doctor visits, M&M’s, transvestites, and fly eating. Soon Zen is a teenager and Zin has been diagnosed with cancer and desperately needs expensive chemotherapy. Zen and her friend, Moom, discover a black book filled with people who owe her mom money, and the duo sets out to collect the debts. Lucky for them, this particular form of autism has granted Zen increased physical prowess in other areas. She can catch anything thrown at her thanks to her highly developed spatial awareness, she’s able to befriend the fattest kid in town without lowering her own coolness factor, and she can master martial arts moves she’s seen on TV (Tony Jaa footage actually) and in the streets outside. So get ready for flying fruit, knives, and fat kids… there’s a s[***]load of ass-kicking coming.
That ass-kicking takes over thirty minutes to start, but once it does, prepare to be awed. Zen (Jeeja[---"new Thai sensation, Yanin Vismistananda"]) is cute and convincingly “special” (in a Lifetime Movie Channel kind of way) when she’s calm, but fierce and fast once the fighting starts. She mimics stances and moves from Jaa to Bruce Lee including the latter’s famous thumb swipe over the nose and guttural, high pitched growl.
The fight scenes are convincingly painful to watch, but more impressively, Zen’s skills seem to increase with each successive encounter. Her fists, feet, and Chan-like acrobatics all become faster and more precise as the movie goes on. This makes sense narratively as she’s technically learning to fight throughout the movie, but it can make for some awkwardly disjointed clashes early on. A brawl in a fly-infested slaughterhouse impresses with flying knives and Jeeja’s skillful pole fighting. All of these smaller fights pale beside the film’s finale though, when she finds herself outside on a foot-wide ledge two to three stories above the street. Neon signs jutting out from the wall, opened windows, and the hard street below all play painful roles in this amazingly choreographed clash.
…
But can Claire Danes playing Temple Grandin match Jeeja’s kicks?
Comments are not updating in the sidebar, and neither are posts (that Hillary post is from Wednesday, yesterday!). Here’s some recent comments:
BethBkl about autism tattoos.
RAJ about mice models of autism.
Sue comments on sometimes moving is all you can do.
Fielding J. Hurst on the teenager who attacked an autistic teen and posted a video on YouTube.
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield
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.
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.
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?
No, something’s not working on my blog. I’ve been writing tech support—– sigh.
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.
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.
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.
Saw a poster for the movie while walking down Kennedy Blvd last week—-no, didn’t go into rent it.