It seems as if Thailand is now the place to go for martial arts films featuring shockingly realistic fighting. This really came to the attention of the world at large with Ong-Bak, a film with fight scenes so intense that the legitimacy of them is still debated today. While I found the fights to be amazing in that film, the story left me rather cold. I really haven’t been back to the genre at all since then, but the premise of Chocolate, the newest film from Ong-Bak director Prachya Pinkaew, really caught my attention. I’m glad I gave this style of film a second chance, because to put it simply, Chocolate kicks ass.

The film begins with a woman named Zin, who is somehow mixed up in the Thai mob. Somewhere along the line, it seems as if she’s fallen in love with Masashi, a member of the Japanese Yakuza which are a rival to the Thai mob. She’s carrying his baby, but due to fear that while he’s around she’ll always be in danger, he goes back to Japan and leaves her to raise the child, named Zen, by herself. To make matters more difficult, Zen is autistic.

Flash-forward a number of years and things only get worse. Zen is now a teenager, and while Zin has Zen’s best friend Moom to help take care of her, she really needs some care herself. She’s been diagnosed with cancer, and they don’t have the money to pay for treatment. Zen has the uncanny ability to catch anything thrown towards her, and Moom begins taking her out to perform on the street to earn some money for Zin’s treatments. It’s barely enough, and when Moom runs across a black book that lists a bunch of people that owe Zin money, he decides to look for these people and see if he can get the money back. What he doesn’t realize is that Zin was mixed up in the Thai mob, and these are bad people, not willing to make paybacks. He also doesn’t realize that Zen’s fascination with martial arts films have taught her the way of Muay Thai, and when the baddies decide not to pay up, she takes matters into her own hands, re-sparking tensions from the past.

Now, let’s get some of the films shortcomings out of the way first. While I found the premise to be a fresh idea, the actual execution isn’t that great. The story itself is pretty barren; just like Ong-Bak, the story is paper-thin, and basically only exists to move the film from one fight scene to the next. For some reason however, this didn’t bother me nearly as much here as it did with Ong-Bak. That could be due to how appealing I found the idea of the film to be. But it’s because of this under-developed and generically realized story that the first 30 minutes of the film is rather poor. The script itself is so weak that these 30 minutes of character development and set-up don’t have the intended impact. So what you’re left with are hollow characters that are stereotypically good or evil and motivations that are quite vanilla.

Look past these flaws however, and you’re in for one hell of a ride. Most people will come to this party for the action, and Chocolate delivers it in spades. The fight scenes are phenomenal, with newcomer Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda manhandling hordes of lowlifes with ease, and I took much joy in watching her dish out the hurt. These fight scenes are complimented by some wonderful set pieces, including a freezer filled with giant blocks of ice and a butcher shop where knives and hooks are utilized. Hand-to-hand combat isn’t all the film has to offer either, as there’s some quality swordplay and gunplay sprinkled throughout the film as well. All of this fighting and style comes at a small price however, as it can get a bit repetitive, and there’s an instance or two where you can see the background of an environment is achieved via a green-screen effect. The editing can leave something to be desired at times as well.

Overall, these fight sequences are all fine and good in their own right, but it’s the final showdown that truly makes this film worth seeking out. The finale of Chocolate is among the finest action scenes ever filmed, no joke. It takes place on the narrow outer-ledges of a multi-story building with advertising signs jutting out from various points of the building. This is among the most thrilling martial arts sequences I’ve ever had the pleasure to see, and the falls some of the guys take are absolutely brutal-looking. Shockingly enough, most of the falls are completely legit, as you can see in the blooper reel during the end credits. At least one of the guys gets carted off to the hospital, and you get to see that Jeeja herself gets pretty banged up during the filming as well.

There’s one other nit-pick I have with the film, and that would be the very ending. One of the main characters fates is completely ignored, leaving the viewer pondering exactly what happened to him. He’s treated as a main character for the entire film, and the last shots of the film after the major climax leave him out. Weak characters and story I can deal with in a martial arts film, but forgetting to give closure on a character that was so integral to the overall story is pretty hard to overlook.

So with all of the complaints, you may wonder why this gets such a high score. Any fans of martial arts films will probably agree that fantastic fight scenes and style can many times overcome weak storytelling and generic characters, and that’s definitely the case with Chocolate. It’s no overstatement that the final act of this film makes it all worthwhile, and that scene alone will no doubt make this film a classic in years to come. The likability and great screen-presence of young Jeeja won’t hurt its chances at becoming popular either and I hope to see more of her in the future. The film rides on the coattails of a unique premise and incredible action, and at the end of the day, it’s just enough to make Chocolate an above average action film. If you can look past its faults, Chocolate is one hell of an entertaining kick to the face.