SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 89 Discussion - Chocolate

@MusterX, I'm pretty sure you have an 88-week unbroken streak of showing up for discussions. I'd hate to see it all end here.
 
Yeah I found this movie pretty okay. Most of the story and drama made my brain drone because of how limp and monotonous it was. Centering the tale around an autistic person didn't really spark my interest to begin with (was it just a way to hide her lack of charisma?) but the movie just didn't make it feel interesting. It felt tacky and gimmicky.

Fight scenes very pretty good though. They upheld the film. The don't have the speed or sense of seamlessness as the best HK-stuff (sometimes you really notice that they just started rolling the camera at static participants), but it was a nice entry and definitively in that vein with how they used their surroundings for stunts and weapons and all.

You can definitively tell that this was directed by the Ong Bak guy just based on the fighting style. All those knees and stuff. There's this particular move where the hero/heroine bends his torso downwards while bringing his knee up high so to strike the opponent topside. Or that 12-to-6-elbow to the top of the dome (somewhere the athletic comission shudders). They are moves very peculiar to his work (and not really present in any real-life martial arts... save capoeira I suppose).

That said, there wasn't anything in this film that wasn't done better in Ong Bak or the Protector. And that autistic storyline was so tacky.



My childhood in a flash-animation. Oh I watched Xiao Xiao waaaay to many times as a wee lad.

If she threw every strike with conviction then it would help a lot, but in many cases it was obvious she was just touching the guys and then you get this big fake sound effect.

Insert joke about taekwando being a point-sport here.

But I do think that JeeJa falls short of the truly great female film-fighters because of this. Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh had a greater sense of speed and impactfulness about them, for example.

I thought the idea of Zen, the autistic warrior,

I prefeer my Martial Artists crippled, thank you very much.

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Anybody know if the original cut is readily available? @europe1 generally seems to have knowledge of these matters.

Not as far as I know.

This movie’s emotional depth isn’t as deep as you’re selling it here. It’s ham-handed and forced. Yeah, the conventions are there, but there’s no life to them. The closest thing I can compare this movie to is Kill Bill. Both deal with a woman leaving a criminal gang when they learn they’re pregnant and go to be with another man, which angers their male boss. Kill Bill took the time to craft meaning behind not even just the Bride’s actions, but behind Bill’s too. The characters were fleshed out, the drive to see the Bride complete her vendetta was there, and when she does it, there’s something to be felt about it. The scene were she finds out she’s pregnant and convinces the hitwoman to walk away was an entralling scene. I get nothing like this from Chocolate.

Totally agree. Chocolate sells it's drama as cheap melodrama. It's tacky and totally unearned, at best to be called servicable but even that's a stretch. It feels like they just placed an autistic person and a person with cancer before us and said "here, instant pathos!"

For example, the girl’s best friend seemed to follow the Thai trend I’ve seen in their movies where he acts like the more lighthearted, bumbling, unathletic counterpart and has bright yellow hair. Even in Ong Bak (same director) the sidekick character in that featured these same characteristics.

In Ong Bak, he was there because the guy playing that role was a famous, bankable comedian. He was even placed on the poster because he put butts in the seats. I wonder if there something similar going on here -- but maybe not.


learning martial arts from watching movies was cool.

Dude, Jackie Chan would learn martial arts by watching cats have fist-fights with snakes at his dojo. That's way cooler than learning it from watching movies.

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Though in hindsight I'm just thinking what gruesome levels of animal cruelty that scene must have entailed.
 
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@MusterX, I'm pretty sure you have an 88-week unbroken streak of showing up for discussions. I'd hate to see it all end here.

MF'er.

I knew you were going to say something. I watched about the first quarter but have been busy with some real life things. There is still a chance I jump in on this before deadline.
 
MF'er.

I knew you were going to say something. I watched about the first quarter but have been busy with some real life things. There is still a chance I jump in on this before deadline.

Indeed. Well if you really can't do it, then I suppose real life must take precedence.

But the cut that I watched is a breezy 88 minutes, you should be able to blow through it pretty easily.
 
Indeed. Well if you really can't do it, then I suppose real life must take precedent.

But the cut that I watched is a breezy 88 minutes, you should be able to blow through it pretty easily.

I know, I know, but.....Francis Ngannou is going to commit a felony tonight......
 
I know, I know, but.....Francis Ngannou is going to commit a felony tonight......

LOL

Well, there's always tomorrow. Hell, there's also Monday and Tuesday.

BRUH, YOU'VE NEVER MISSED A WEEK! DON'T START NOW!

It's like going to the gym, you skip one day and the next thing you know it's been a month since you stepped foot inside that place.
 
Or that 12-to-6-elbow to the top of the dome (somewhere the athletic comission shudders).

LOL

That said, there wasn't anything in this film that wasn't done better in Ong Bak or the Protector. And that autistic storyline was so tacky.

I'm so sick of Tony Jaa and his fucking elephants!

I'd probably rather watch this movie again than Ong Bak just because of that.

Insert joke about taekwando being a point-sport here.



Totally agree. Chocolate sells it's drama as cheap melodrama. It's tacky and totally unearned, at best to be called servicable but even that's a stretch. It feels like they just placed an autistic person and a person with cancer before us and said "here, instant pathos!"

I disagree for reasons already stated.
 
I know, I know, but.....Francis Ngannou is going to commit a felony tonight......

Nah, bruh. Stipe is going to jab-him-up all night! You watch!

Bet on it! Loser will have to say that Swiss Army Man is a fucking great movie!
 
My laptop burned up. I'll see what I can do with my week here but it's not looking great at the moment. I'd hate to post a movie review from mobile.
 
Ok, I'm home again, and I've temporarily fixed (read: bypassed) my computer problems, so away we go. Of all the weeks to blow up, it had to be my week. It's ok though, because UFC 220 was a great time, Boston is always a lovely city, and it was a good trip overall. Enough about me, let's get to the face punching. Oh yeah, hey @Bullitt68, where you at, homie? My excuse is that my laptop almost caught fire, what's up eh?

Before I delve too far in, I would like to address some criticisms I read above. First of all, sure, she's tiny and probably wouldn't do much damage against fully grown men, so that's where I embrace the willing suspension of disbelief and go with a "size matters not, judge me by my size, do you" approach. Her technique and finesse allows her to strike her opponent at just the right spot to take them out without needing to inflict much damage. Or just it's a martial arts movie, and this girl did great with what she had to work with in her first acting role. But yes, it is quite hard to believe that a tiny little thing like her would side kick a dude in the chest and he would go flying. I did note on this viewing after a while that the lion's share of her strikes are kicks.

Also, there's no doubt it thrust us into the middle of the story without basically any exposition, making us learn along the way of the forbidden love that Zen's mom had for the rival gangster, and how Zen's mom was stuck in a bad situation no matter where she turned. She tried to make the most of it for her daughter, but it was not meant to be. Not only did she have her own problems, including her illness, but she also had her daughter that she had to take care of.

I got such a kick out of her watching Ong Bak and other martial arts films to "git gud", especially her watching a film directed by the director a few years prior as an example of great martial arts exhibition. It was like a professor recommending his or her book for their course, it just felt funny.

I wouldn't go as far to say it's a ripoff of Ong Bak in terms of recurring motifs and writing, because they use characters like the dopey comic relief buddy or slow motion action shots of the fights, or specific techniques from the various martial arts styles like the downward elbows and flying knees from MT. I just think of it as favorite characteristics the director likes to portray. I don't know Thai cinema enough to know if it's a specific trope, like the dumb buddy, or if it's just the writer/director. Either way, it doesn't bother me too much.

I'd love to know what 20 minutes were cut out of this picture, that's pretty significant. Was it story, or more combat?

Rewatching this, I soured a little on the whole "the perfect enemy for Zen is another child who is disabled and unique". It looks like he has a very serious form of Tourette's, which is much more significant than the seemingly funny affliction you see portrayed on South Park and from the Tourette's Guy on youtube. My buddy had a mild form of it and it involved plenty of tics and twitches and it's just a pain to deal with I'm sure. He wasn't able to have a dance-off battle, it's cinematic so go with it.

I'd give it a 7/10, it's fun and has some great fight scenes. The plot is simple enough, and they didn't let much get complicated other than a little rivalry between Japanese and Thai gangs. With a film chock full of frenetic fight scenes, do we really need a complicated plot? The acting was fine, we got to feel for Zen's mother and her tragic story, but did you honestly expect high level acting and performances from a film like this? Be reasonable.
 
Ok, I'm home again, and I've temporarily fixed (read: bypassed) my computer problems, so away we go. Of all the weeks to blow up, it had to be my week. It's ok though, because UFC 220 was a great time, Boston is always a lovely city, and it was a good trip overall. Enough about me, let's get to the face punching. Oh yeah, hey @Bullitt68, where you at, homie? My excuse is that my laptop almost caught fire, what's up eh?

Yeah @Bullitt68, where you at motherfucker?

I got such a kick out of her watching Ong Bak and other martial arts films to "git gud", especially her watching a film directed by the director a few years prior as an example of great martial arts exhibition.

This one one of my favorite parts and I wish there was more of it, like a whole training montage where she learns from movies. According to the trivia the movie originally also also included clips from Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies. It's a shame that couldn't clear the licensing hurdle on those.
 
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