Chocolate

No, not Chocolat (tho' I did like that but, having only seen it on a plane, never reviewed it - I refuse to review movies edited for airlines). No, I'd call this one, "Retard-Strength w/ Thai Peanut Sauce." And that's a compliment so don't get bent outta shape by my non-P.C.'ness, m'kay?

Prachya Pinkaew, director of Ong Bak and The Protector, unleashes another action-packed, fun martial arts flick with Chocolate. It's the story of a mentally-disabled girl named Zen of mixed ethnicity (mom's Thai, dad's Japanese) who has the special ability to learn martial arts just by watching others do them. Really - what an awesome way to avoid pointless expositionary training montages, finally! Chubby sorta-brother Moom is her friend and barker for street events where folks will pay money to throw tennis balls at her from any direction and she'll catch them, too.

Mom and dad were apparently gangsters, running afoul of an evil Thai boss who just won't let the past lie. Dad goes back to Japan in fear/shame/respect and mom eventually gets cancer. Moom finds her old collections book and sets out to get payments out of slimy businessmen to help pay for their hospital bills. Being just kids he and Zen are brushed off or beat up/tossed around as if they're nothing. But then Zen goes berserk, seeing only the need to get money for her mom, and goes quite literally martial arts-crazy.

And that's really the film's strong point and it plays it out pretty consistently: Moom and Zen go for collections, get abused, she flips out and beats up every single bad guy in sight, repeatedly. In an ice warehouse, an "evil candy" warehouse, a meat market - wherever she has to to save mom. Early on, she watches Tony Jaa movies (Thailand's no.1 star) so she has all his moves and she can actually do 'em. It's pretty hysterical to see a young girl beat the crap out of 30 bad guys at a time and never give up, never relent. Since she's "special" she just doesn't have any quit in her until she has what she wants - and then she's just fine.

Throw in a typical Asiatic-horrific soundtrack, an odd fear of flies, and a very evil tranny gang (this is Thailand, after all) and you have an actually winning, fun movie.

It's currently on the "instant queue" in Netflix and I recommend grabbing it.

And, no, they never say why the film's titled Chocolate, other than Zen calms down when she has some. Really, that's about it.