Something Unique

     I have decided this week that I will focus on action movies. However I will be exploring a range of action movies.

     This of course brings me to today's movie......

    Cocolate (a Thai film directed by  Prachya Pinkaew) is about a young autistic girl named Zen, who has an uncanny reflexes, and the ability to copy any martial art she sees. 

     Zen is the daughter of Zin, a Thai mobster and former girlfriend of the mob boss, and a Japanese gangster named Masashi. Angered by their relationship the mob boss banishes Masashi to Japan, And forbids them to ever have contact again.  

                                               

     Soon after Zin moves to hide from the mob, finds out that she is pregnant with Masashis baby. Nine months later, Zen is born, and not long after, she is diagnosed as autistic. Zin writes a letter to contact Masashi a letter to let him know he has a daughter, the mob boss finds out, finds her and cuts off one of her toes to remind her she is not supposed to contact him. 

     As zen grows up, she starts exhibiting strange talents, a big heart, and the uncanny ability to copy any martial art she sees. The mother daughter pair wind up taking in a fat boy by the name of Moom, to watch over Zen.

     Later in life Mom Zin winds up with cancer, and needing money for chemotherapy, Moom takes Zen out as a street performer, using her amazing reflexes as a gimmick by throwing balls at her, and she will catch them no matter where they come from.

     One day by accident, Moom runs across a ledger of Mom Zin's, of people who owe her money, and he gets the idea to go collect it from them so that they can buy her chemo,  which turns out to be a much harder job than he thought, and Zin winds up becoming an enforcer, if by accident alone.

     The fight scenes in this movie are groundbreaking, visually stunning, and some of the flat out most entertaining things I have ever seen in my life. It is almost impossible not to connect with Zen, you want nothing more than for her to succeed, and you wind up rooting for her with everything you are. The story is wonderfully told, and I am afraid to say, that my synopsis does the film no justice. 

     Watch it for the action, enjoy it for the story, love it for the amazing choreography and edge of you seat fight scenes.(one of best of which is on the ledges of an Thailand apartment building). But most of all, watch it, because as action movies go, it is a great movie period.