2 posts tagged “jeeja yanin”
There are a couple of things wrong with the Thai martial-arts flick Chocolate. First (and worst) of all is that title... true, the main character does eat sweets now and again, and they may well contain chocolate beneath their colourful coating... but you can't call every film that features children eating sweets "Chocolate", now can you? Second of all is the rather dull half-hour that precedes the ass-kickery promised by the menu screen clips and cover photos. I understand why it's there, to establish the characters and their struggles, and make the roaring rampage of revenge that much sweeter... but that doesn't mean it has to be such a drag, does it? Man wants woman, woman wants other man, both men are gangsters, woman and other man have baby, first man is angry about that, threats and toe-chopping ensue. Tra la la la. The baby daughter in question, Zen (played by a gymnastic young actress named JeeJa Yanin), turns out to be autistic... but it's a special sort of action-movie autism, which allows her to learn and mimic any fight move she sees on TV, or in person. Handy! It sounds a little silly, but it actually makes for some great showdowns... particularly the one where she meets a foe whose moves are so random she can barely keep up.
The story takes a while to get rolling, but once Zen finds her feet as a fighter, it turns into an absurdly awesome spectacle. That's "awesome" in the true sense of the word, btw. While Zen may be able to learn new moves in a matter of minutes, Yanin spent about two years training and learning the choreography... and it shows. There's minimal wire-work, and it's all painfully, bone-crunchingly real... as proven by the rather unpleasant out-takes. I'm no expert on martial-arts flicks... in fact my frame of reference pretty much begins and ends with Jackie Chan... but if the action was always this fast, funny and furious, then I'd be a big fan. Slapstick is always good for a laugh or two, but especially when it crops up in the middle of an otherwise very serious and deadly duel. Thinking about it, Zen is what Buffy should have become after seven years of her supposed evolution as a Slayer... a seemingly innocent and sweet-natured girl, who can kick you down a heating vent faster than you can blink. This film is crying out to become a franchise, because the concept still has a lot of juice left in it, now that the character has been established. She's unbeatable in combat, but in day-to-day life she is almost entirely reliant on her friends and family. That's a pretty novel twist on the Drunken/Blind Master concept, even if it isn't necessarily in the best possible taste. If nothing else, Yanin deserves some kind of medal for what she put herself through, as well as some slightly easier gigs that showcase her talent and dedication without putting her neck on the line.
