Just Like Rain Man

Thirty-four minutes and 30 seconds.

Almost every kung fu flick has the moment where it stops pretending
to be a narrative drama and accepts the following facts: (1) The
audience is not here for “character development.” (2) The audience does
not give a shit about “acting.” (3) The audience will get up and leave,
right goddamn now, if you don’t start showing some bad guys getting
their asses handed to them.

For its first half-hour, Chocolate is full of goofy
melodrama, needless backstory, and montages set to sappy Thai pop.
Though there are premonitions of ass-kickings to come, it’s not until
34 minutes and 30 seconds in that the film slams into gear. But when it
does, the only word to describe it is “holyfuckingshit.”

I have to go back to 2003’s Ong-Bak—the film that
introduced the world to Tony Jaa’s insane muay thai skills—to
think of any of action sequences as surprising and impressive as those
in Chocolate. (Which makes sense ; Ong-Bak‘s director,
Prachya Pinkaew, also helms Chocolate.) This time around,
Pinkaew introduces us to 24-year-old Yanin Vismitananda, who plays an
autistic girl named Zen. I’d sum up Zen’s character if
Chocolate‘s trailer hadn’t already done an amazing job: She’s “a
special-needs girl… with a special need… to kick some ass.”

How can an autistic girl kick ass, you ask? Easy! See, Zen grew up
watching kids next door learn muay thai, and she also watched a ton of
kung fu flicks (including Ong-Bak!), so… somehow, her brain…
it absorbed… look, I’m no doctor, but because of how autism’s base
DNA pairs… the powers of mimicry are very powerful. LOOK, I DON’T
KNOW, OKAY? I guess if you show autistic kids stuff they can
automatically do it or whatever? Good enough for me!

Anyway, back to what’s important: Doing all of her own stunts,
Vismitananda skitters across the sides of buildings and flies around
like Michael Jordan, all while smacking the living shit out of
troublesome motherfuckers with her heels, elbows, and fists. It’s
pretty astounding—Vismitananda’s skills recall not only those of
Jaa, but also of Jackie Chan, back before Jackie Chan did stuff other
than cash Rush Hour paychecks and depress the hell out of
everyone. There are also samurai swords, female henchmen who look like
cross-dressers, and a reel that runs under the end credits showing
everyone getting hurt during the making of the movie—reminding
you that in Thailand, they do not believe in safety. What they
do believe in, though, are autistic chicks who can kick you 45
times before you even hit the ground. And come to think of it, that’s
something all of us can believe in.