In short: Tom yum goong 2 (2013)

Kham’s (Tony Jaa) peaceful country life is disturbed when another gang of evildoers steals his elephant. This time around, the bad guys around a certain LC (RZA, because why hire an actor and martial artist when you can get a rapper who can’t act and is shit in his action scenes presumably for free because he’s an – admirably – big martial arts fan) want to use the poor elephant to blow up some foreign politicians. The elephant bomb is not the most stupid thing in the movie.

If you expected Tom yum goong 2 to be a return to form for Tony Jaa and director Prachya Pinkaew, there’s a good chance you’ll be disappointed, for it’s rather overly polite to call the film not very good. It’s not just that RZA – whose love for martial arts movies, it turns out, doesn’t make up for him being crap in them - makes a horrible main bad guy. There’s also the fact that for every fun stupid action movie idea, the film has three ideas that are just stupid, the trouble the films plot has to even connect the action scenes decently, and that Pinkaew’s direction seems rather disinterested.

The action itself fluctuates between the by now routine Thai choreography style, badly integrated CGI, and too many moments that are clearly meant to impress the audience with their stupid awesomeness (I’ll just say burning feet) but mostly feel like acts of a filmmaker trying way too hard and embarrassing himself with it. It’s a shame too, for there are a handful of moments in the fights that still show the brilliance early Pinkaew/Jaa had. Unfortunately, these moments are never where any given scene stops, because each and every fight here goes on way past its welcome, editing things down looking like a lost art.

Last and worst, if you were hoping that the casting of JeeJa Yanin beside Jaa would lead to either some awesome team-ups or awesome fights between the two, like I did in my naiveté, you will also be disappointed, for JeeJa spends most of her fights being everyone’s punching bags in what I can only see as a desperate attempt to make Jaa look more impressive. Well, at least it fits the film’s series of other wasted opportunities.

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Chocolate (2008)

Zin (Ammara Siripong) is the lover of a Thai gangster boss (whose name I don't think anybody ever mentions), but also one of his enforcers. When she meets the yakuza Masashi (Hiroshi Abe), the man instantly falls in love with her, or with her scars to be precise.

She doesn't resist his charm very long and the two start an affair. It doesn't take much time for Evil Bad Guy to find out what is happening. He shows himself to be one of the more lenient of his ilk and just throws Zin out of the gang and forces Masashi to leave Thailand forever.

I doubt that he would be so nice if he knew that Zin was pregnant. Her daughter Zen (soon to be played by future action star Yanin "JeeJa" Vismitananda) isn't completely healthy though. The girl suffers from some form of autism.

Zin tries to keep in contact with Masashi, but when Evil Bad Guy and his transvestite main henchie find out about this terrible transgression, they cut off one of her toes.

A few years later, Zin isn't only missing a toe, she is also dying of cancer. Since Thailand doesn't have public healthcare, she is in desperate need of money. Her only income comes from public performances her daughter and her friend Mooma (whom Zin quasi-adopted) make, showing off one of those near-superhuman skills the movies taught me to expect from autistic people - an ability to catch without looking everything that is thrown in her direction.

Alas, they aren't making enough money to keep everyone alive, so when the kids find a list of people who owe Zin money, they promptly try to collect it.

Of course Zin's debtors are all gangsters and assorted low-life and not willing to give their money to the next kid who asks for it. At this point, Zen's second special talent comes in handy. An uncanny ability to imitate other people's movements in combination with a steady diet of Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee movies have made her a very competent fighter.

So, the money fetching business works out well for them, until Evil Bad Guy and his underlings take an interest. After all, he "adopted" Zin's money when he threw her out, and the thrashed tough guys are his tough guys.

 

Prachya Pinkaew (Ong-Bak) strikes again, this time with the avowed goal to make JeeJa Thailand's next big action star export after Tony Jaa. I'm all for it. The last years haven't been kind to women in genre films, who have again mostly been relegated to being victims and eye candy for male viewers, a step in the wrong direction that cries out to be corrected again. JeeJaa looks like an excellent candidate for this kind of project: Her martial arts skills are very convincing and her acting is surprisingly good. If Dustin Hoffman can get an Oscar for the dreaded Rain Man I see no reason why she can't get one for Chocolate.

A talented and charismatic actress alone does not a good film make, of course. Pinkaew has learned from the flaws of his earlier movies, it seems. The plot isn't something to write home about, but it's solid and works well in holding the action together. And directing action scenes has never been one of Pinkaew's problems. He's not doing much new with his "ouch, that must have hurt" style of action, but what he does is very effective and rousing - particularly since his direction style affords us the luxury to actually see what is happening in the action scenes, something that often gets lost through all the jump-cutting and fast-forwarding modern martial arts movies are prone to.

How much you will like Chocolate is based on a single, simple question: how much do you like to see a young woman kicking the crap out of people? And really, what's not to like about that?

 

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