Taste the fury, because Chocolate (2008) is the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film,
featuring Sean ‘Hollywood’ Hunting.
Review in a Nutshell: From the makers of Ong-Bak and The Protector, what I expected from Chocolate and what the movie delivered were two very different things. The central conceit is that the protagonist is an autistic girl with the ability to mimic any martial arts style she sees, but the film is much more dramatic than I anticipated, treating the challenges faced by family members with special needs with a surprising degree of dignity and respect.
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
Wow, Paul! I never even heard of this one!
This was a fantastic review, Paul and Sean. I greatly enjoyed it. A few notes from my end:
Paul, you didn’t really say anything unintentionally wrong or offensive about Autism and its spectrum, I assure you. I have a Master’s degree in the mental health field and I work with children with Autism everyday. The range of the disorder is truly fascinating. You will see an incredibly wide range of ability in Autism, from students who cannot communicate verbally and are in self-contained classroom settings to students who are mainstreamed in regular education classes and earn incredibly high marks.
I will note, however, that Tourette syndrome most definitely includes the physical tics, and they are actually much more common than the repeated dirty words/phrases and such that we typically see in popular culture (see: Deuce Bigalow, Not Another Teen Movie, the Dateline/Chris Hansen spoof episode of South Park, etc). Tourette’s is not really a common disorder (I’ve actually never experienced it firsthand with a child in all honesty) but is generally treated with behavioral therapy.
And Sean is right about Legend of Drunken Master. That’s always the first Martial Arts film I show to people who don’t know much about the genre and I’ve never shown to anyone who didn’t immediately love it. It is almost the perfect gateway Martial Arts movie and an excellent blend of kung fu and comedy (it’s just classic Jackie Chan at perhaps the zenith of his Hong Kong film career).
You guys mentioned the stunt work but it sounded like you didn’t watch the Jackie Chan style stunt reel at the end if the movie. Those guys take an absolute beating and, if I remember right, the last shot is the cast visiting someone in the hospital.
Chocolate is the first movie I ever saw Jeeja Yanin in, and honestly I still think it’s her best movie by a mile. Raging Phoenix had its moments, but I question the need to literally title a film “This Girl Is Bad-Ass!!” if the movie’s actually a wacky comedy with literal cartoon sound effects. I never did watch The Kick, but I also didn’t hear much talk about it.
Despite Ong-Bak 2 and 3 being awful, I still had high hopes for Tom Yum Goong 2 (The Protector 2), since both Jeeja and Tony Jaa were going to be in it and most importantly Prachya Pinkaew was back directing instead of Tony Jaa himself. “Hey, maybe Tony Jaa movies can be good again!” Unfortunately, it has the cancer of martial arts action movies in it: yep, The RZA’s on-screen. Acting and fighting. Real poorly. YET AGAIN. And he’s the main villain such that Jeeja doesn’t really do much of anything. Boo to you, Jim Kelly, for inadvertently enabling this.
I considered remaining silent on this matter (no, not Sean’s audio quality; I told you about that already), but it’s been weighing too heavily on my conscience: the movie Born to Fight which Sean recommended you watch is something that I’ve run multiple clips from at DOOM! It’s stupendously contrived and implausible in ways that people would skewer a US production over, and it’s a slog to actually get through due to the rampant disjointed absurdities combined with bad guys who prey upon the innocent rather viciously. What I’m trying to say here is that you need to get the 2-disc Dragon Dynasty edition and then watch it, along with the one-hour making of, the commentary, and the various extras.
When did Sean become Mecha Sean?
I cannot wait for the eventual Dark Knight Rises podcast. Probably Nolan’s biggest failure (not box office-wise).
I think Chocolate was a good way to go with the naming of this film. If an autistic girl who loves chocolate was naming a film, what else would she name it? I think it also beats the 70s martial arts naming convention (Lady Girl Fighter) or a more modern one (Daughter of Dragons). Chocolate Stands out.
Sean’s issue with not seeing all of the replies might lie within a setting. I know that as a member of an FB group, there is a setting to only see friends comments, or all comments. Also, an RSS reader is really helpful if you want to be notified of all comments.