Very well executed

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Read a couple reviews here ranting about how great it was, but I really don't see it.The plot is really poor, the acting below average and not even the fighting was impressive.The first 15 minutes were also rather confusing where I found myself not knowing what was going on, after that I did get the hang of it though but yeah I really didn't like it at all and found myself bored a lot, which is pretty impressive for a action-movie that only is about 82 minutes long without the credits.If you want to watch a entertaining martial arts flick that you might not have heard about instead why not go with 'Legendary Assassin' AKA 'Long Na' from 2008. It doesn't have that much food for thought either but at least it entertains and got some wicked buttkicking.

CHOCOLATE is the latest offering to come from Thailand's top action directors: the same guys who brought us ONG BAK and WARRIOR KING. This film changes the mould slightly, with the shift from Tony Jaa to a new female lead actress, Jeeja Yanin, who seems just as skilled as Jaa to me. Otherwise it's business as usual, as our heroine takes on multiple bad guys in huge, brawling action set-pieces that get progressively more elaborate and more exciting as the story goes on. As for the story, it's a little more believable than in the other films, and the idea of having the main actress playing an autistic character is a brave one that ultimately pays off.However, this is a film all about the action and strictly one for the action fans. The first half hour makes for slow build up, with plenty of the melodrama you expect from these productions. Then we hit the first set-piece, a simple battle in an ice factory. This recalls THE BIG BOSS and is quite good, although Yanin's moves seem deceptively simple. The second time – a battle in a warehouse – and it's much better, with great style and great stunts. Yanin proves athletic and powerful and does some seemingly impossible stuff. The third set-piece is inside a butcher's, and is the best yet, with great use made of props – painful spikes, cleavers and all manner of implements ready to impale the unwary. By this time, so much emphasis has been made of the action, we're almost at the climax, which lasts for an incredible half an hour. It starts off with a rerun of WARRIOR KING's one-against-many showdown, as Yanin tackles loads of thugs, before moving into swordplay and some bloody deaths. All that's left is the lead villain to deal with – and I was ready for the film to be over; I'd already marked it 4 out of 5 in my head. Pretty good, if short.How mistaken I was. We have another full ten minutes out of this and it's the best part of the film – indeed the best part of any Thai film I've seen. Full of originality, this is yet another set-piece, set up in the air as Yanin tackles the bad guys on the outside of a building! It's an elaborate set that Jackie Chan would be proud of, as characters jump from sign to sign, get thrown through glass or just fall painfully to the ground. The hard-hitting stunts are powerful beyond belief and I had to immediately rewind this bit to watch it again – and I still can't get enough of it. What a brilliant ending! It makes the film and is something I'll come back to time and time again, even if I do end up fast-forwarding through the non-action stuff (not that I would really do that). CHOCOLATE is a great film and I hope we get more like this soon.

I am tapping on my phone here, so some brevity. I strongly disagree with most of the reviews on here for this. I grew up hooked on Master Bruce Lee, have always loved Jackie Chan from when he came along. This movie screenplay, despite what others have written, was vastly superior to any of the movies of my youth. I could not.believe how great the quality was for a Thai production. I have seen this movie a few times, and replayed numerous Scenes, to derermine how they were able to do choreography for these fights. They really did not cut scene often. A few times, my son and I had to watch a few times at the seemingly impossible skills demonstrated by Yanin Vismitananda. OK, the English dubbing was horrible, but I got past that quick enough. This character of Zen, is acted tremendously well. Surprisingly, she was able to mimic Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan to a perfect T, even though she herself practices Tae Kwon Do. Most impressively, when she learned to replicate the one, unpredictable, fighter, who had an almost Torrett's style was a great addition. This girl, Yanin Jeeja (transliterated to English letters uniquely) really did run up a man to kick him in the face, and her other air acrobatics were very believably done. A few times she went from a one knee down position, to getting airborne enough to connect her knees to heads. She and they made it seem so easy, but it certainly was not something we see little girls do. If you enjoyed martial arts films predating CGI, you can't watch this without being extremely impressed. One thing that really added to the version I watched was how when actors were hurt by the small dynamo, they kept the film footage in the vilm and slowed them down, which blew me away. Lastly, I found this film to be greatly superior to any of the Ong Bak trilogy films. Sure, They were good, with Tony Jaa, but this girl really astonished me. I want to see her pulled into some Hollywood productions. Great job to all involved.

So I was over at my friend's house one weekend and we were watching a bunch of crappy movies, and on one of the DVDs -can't remember which title it was, but it was released by Magnolia Pictures and Magnet- there was this trailer that caught my attention. The basic story was about this ass-kicking Asian girl who was getting her revenge on a bunch of people who wronged her, or so I thought...I really couldn't remember because I was mesmerized by this hot little Asian girl who was kicking some major ass in the trailer. I didn't really pay much attention to the name of the movie, but I remembered thinking "Man...I really want to see that movie" and then I promptly forgot about it until a few weeks later. My friend and I were out at chain DVD and Blu-ray store that specializes in selling mostly used product that other people trade in -betcha can't guess which one I'm talking about-. So anyway, there we we're checking out their selection of used Blus and I suddenly remembered that trailer, but as I said before, I didn't remember the name. He couldn't remember either, but not to worry, he breaks out his smart phone and he does a Google search for recent martial arts flicks with female stars and he finds a trailer for a movie call Chocolate -not to be confused with that chick flick Chocolat starring the very popular Johnny Depp-. He shows me said trailer and asks if that was the movie I was thinking of...and it was. So we checked to see if this place has it, and not too surprisingly they don't. But another nearby BIG BOX store, whose employees wear blue Polo style shirts and khaki pants, did. So we rushed right over and bought it.So what exactly is this movie called Chocolate about? My original interpretation of the trailer was only partially correct...she is a hot Asian chick and she kicks a ton of ass in it. However the revenge aspect was off. The actual plot is simple: real-life, human anime looking Yakuza man and hot Thai dragon lady crime lieutenant fall in love, but both of their organizations kinda hate the fact that they are together. So they split up and go their separate ways, but not before she ends up pregnant. She decides to leave her life of crime behind and raise their autistic offspring -dragon lady smoked a lot and this of course caused some defects- on her own. She gets a normal job at a restaurant and somehow adopts a homeless boy who gets picked on by all the local bullies because he's fat and has bad acne. As our heroine Zen grows up -eventually into Jeeja-, she watches the young, neighbor boys practicing the deadly martial art Muay Thai in the courtyard of the housing complex her family lives in, and she starts mimicking their moves. She also loves watching old Tony Jaa movies and playing martial arts fighting games. Flash forward a few years and both she and her adopted brother Moom are in their mid teens and he's hustling for money on the streets by taking advantage of Zen's incredible speed, agility, and talent of catching balls flying at her head.So as it turns out, all those years of smoking have caught up with the hot Thai dragon lady and she gets cancer. But alas they are very poor and cannot afford treatment. So one night while Zen is playing video games, Moom finds the dragon lady's old collections book from back when she was still a mafioso, and he opens it and sees that a whole bunch of people owe her some serious cash. So he and Zen go visit these people to ask if they can pay their debts to the dragon lady so they can use the money for her cancer treatment and much high jinx ensues. Basically all of those years of studying Muay Thai from afar pays off and Zen goes on a rampage to get "Mommy Money." So why is the movie called Chocolate? Well the only thing I can figure is that Zen loves these little M&M type candies a whole bunch. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. The plot of the film may come off as pretty weak, but trust me, it is well worth your time to watch...if nothing else than to watch the lovely Jeeja Yanin kick some ass!