Chocolate review

Chocolate is Thailand movie from the director of ONG BAK, Prachya Pinkaew with his new main lead Jeeja Vismistananda. I know it's two years movie but I just saw it yesterday. I didn't had much expectation for this movie, simply because many portrayed it as Ong Bak with chick. Don't get me wrong I'm not a sexist, but the stunts that Tony Ja (Ong Bak) pulled off is almost inhuman, it'd be a tall order for a girl to do that. Even if she could do it, Tony Ja took a lot of damage in Ong Bak, surely a girl could not took such punishment. If so then the main lead would breeze through the film unscratched like Aya Ueto in Azumi. I couldn't be more wrong.

The movie is about autistic girl whose mother had a dark past with Yakuza and Triad. When her mother is sick with cancer, she and her best friend try to collect large debt from her mother shady acquaintances. The cinematography isn't that good, many plot holes, overcomplicated stereotype Yakuza plot and the worst is its slow start. The acting also isn't that great, for main lead to play autistic char is not easy, like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, certainly not a role for starting actress.

She might looks timd now..

The good thing is she is like-able, mainly because she's plain. She is normal, wears just simple blouse and skirt, minimal make-up and hairdo, which looks plausible considering the genre. This is not stereotype Charlie's Angels idol pop model and that's a good thing, she is more relate-able and because her background story, it is easy to cheer for her in fights scene. For any who thinks sexed-up glittering pop idol is better, shame on you, sir.

The directing suffers some flaws. You'd think after a couple of movies, the director would improved. To be fair, it's better than Ong Bak, but it has some plodding terrible pace and lack of direction. It's clear from start, he aimed for gritty dark tone, but then the movie turned into comedy when Jeeja became autistic kung fu master / debt collector, then it became noir Yakuza flick when people got headshot all over the place. I know martial art movie do that sometimes, like Kung Fu Hustle, but for a heavy subtext such autistic plot deserves more mature approach.

The best part is the action stunt. Of all the movie I've seen, this has the best choreographed fight scenes, better than Ip man (the first at least) or Ong Bak, Hollywood movies don't even come close. One most simple reason is it's done by chick, you can see her did her own stunt because unlike movies with stunt double, the camera don't pan away from her face, sometime even attempt to close up during fights. It also has behind the scene in the credit for more info. She took a bunch of hits, full spin or overhead kick to her face. The impact from those hits are great, her slender body jerked and slammed like marionette. She practically bleeds for this, watch and learn half-ass studio that made crappy Chun Li or Dragon Ball movie.

You have to see it in motion.

It started simple with Jeet Kune Do, a tribute to Bruce Lee, if you can call it simple.. Many movies or games has Bruce Lee's knock off but never a girl doing his impression. She pulled off rapid combo low-high-roundhouse kicks with such ease and speed, thet are as fast as any jab. The "Waaaaatthaaaaahh" moment is stupid but kinda awesome at the same time. The second part is kung fu, stick play and environment stunt, a tribute to Jackie Chan. The playful tone and switch between stair, locker doors and food stands makes this a deja vu of early Jackie's movies.

The half til finish fights really ramped up the speed and tech. A mix of Muay Thai, Aikido, Capoeira, Hip-Hop Breakdance, Sword play and extreme Parkour that can only be described as poetry in motion. Any backflip or aerial stunt Tony Ja did, she could do it too. Some scenes has double or even triple takedowns or Capoeira versus aerial kicks. The director maybe isn't that good in cinematography but in fights, he's brilliant, some scenes are perfectly tailored to Jeeja. Her petite light figure allowed her to pulled off crazy stunts, like ledge-billboard-balcony jump kick from 30-40 meters height, Tony Ja with his larger and more muscular figure would probably have hard time doing this on such narrow platform.

Overall this movie is flawed, slow start and odd pacing, but the stunts more than makes up for it. IGN gave this 6/10, but the reviewer probably didn't realize Asian martial art movie needed some 70-80 years from old fashion Peking Opera to Bruce Lee cinematic to Jackie Chan comedy flair to this high pace fluid new style. I'm sure there are a bunch of scenes that makes you "Holy crap, that's gotta hurt". If you haven't see it, you are only one trip to DVD shop (toko bajakan DVD) and 5k rupiah away from martial art greatness. Rate 9/10.

Better than many many Hollywood stunt double

Quick somebody cast her as Faith from Mirror's Edge..

.. or Soi Fong from Bleach

Immortal Jackasses in Manga Pt.2

So next on jackass list is.... Btw "Father from FMA Brotherhood" suppose to be on the list but I haven't finish reading it.

#3 Uchiha Sasuke from Naruto.
The guy who should be slashed.. soon..

Sasuke is like Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars, a prodigy fallen from grace. At first he was interesting character, a bit emo but cool. Fast forward a few hundred chapters, he became a douche bag. First he wanted kill his brother for vengeance and now after his brother died, he wants to kill everybody else. He became idiotically overpowered, able to kill Orochimaru through sheer bullcrap, "Orochi, you suck".. "Noooo!!!!" Sasuke wins!!

Recently he barged in the five kages meeting, the he fought Raikage, Kazekage (Garaa), Mizukage, Hokage wannabe (Danzo), Kakashi, Sakura and almost Naruto, along with their bodyguards and some other dudes. I remember the time Sasuke had limitation like how many Chidori or limited Sharingan, but no.. Now Sasuke has infinite chakra, maybe they should change the manga title to Sasuke. The real jackass coronation was when he stabbed Karin.

"Hey Shishio also did that, why is he #3?" you ask.. Well it takes a special breed of gentleman to stab a girl face-to-face while smiling. Itachi sacrificed everything for peace, somehow Sasuke misinterpreted that into "Killing spree, my lil bro" and embarked for a journey for vengeance.. again. Nice way of pissing your bro's legacy, asshole. So congratulation Sasuke, you are now officially a douche bag.

#2 Oni me no Kyo from Samurai Deeper Kyo.
Yeah I regret the day I paid for this crap.

If you look at the list, they are all antagonist, so how could the main hero became a jackass? Well he simply is. Kyo is overpowered from the very beginning, 1000 men slayer or whatever, the manga started interesting enough with some limitation to balance things out. Kyo is a shallow character, he wanted to be no.1 and killed a bunch of dudes, why? So he could kill another bunch of dudes. Manga doesn't always make sense, so cool I went with that. Personality-wise, Kyo has little to none, the things I remember from Kyo are he always yelled "I'll fucking kill you if you stand in my way" while doing empty stare, evil grin or laugh/scream maniacally close-up shot. How he managed to be hero escaped my reason.

Emotion or moral is non-existence, when he asked someone to join party, it was not "Fight with me, bro" but rather "Be my minion! Lowly peons!". When he talk to female, it was not "Go out with me" but rather "Bitch, come here and get busy!". It's very surprising for a manga that emphasis on friendship, more baffling is almost all char joined him, bah. To be fair the cast is interesting especially Hotaru and Shin Rei, but then come the next problem..

Why create such large cast if all they did were just became canon fodder or bought time until the next Kyo power up? At the latter part, the manga became terrible, Kyo single-handedly fought Nobunaga, Hishigi, Fubuki, Kyoshiro, Aka Ou and not only won, but killed them all. Mind you Sasuke just managed to kill Danzo. The hell with 10 min limitation or deadly disease, Kyo was god, able to fought and healed and fought some more. The other cast only there to used one move then died, so reader could awe how awesome the enemies were and how almighty awesome Kyo was for defeating them alone and healed the poor bastards. For ruining your own manga, stand tall Kyo "Si Mata Belekan" you deserve no 2.

#1 Aizen Sousuke from Bleach.
The one who will be slashed.. soon

Aizen is the pinnacle of jackassery. Think about it, he lead a horde of supposed to be superior race and conquer a city to eventually control the world while performing experiment on live people. Sounds familiar? it's Hitler! Let that sinks in.. Aizen is Hitler! Worse than Hitler even. He managed to fooled generation of captains. These people are the best of Grim Reaper, but Aizen surpassed generations of them.

"My. How small your panels are."
The bastard hogging all the spotlight.

I remember when meeting captains (or even vice-captains) results in life or death situation that lasted for several chapters. Now several captains were slain in one chapter, sometimes even one page or one panel (knowing bleach sometime sone page is one panel). All that reputation down the drain. Vaizard got the worse of it, they were experimented on 100 years ago, now they got their asses kicked again by Aizen. Do any one remember their names? What happened to them? No, yeah me too.. They died too fast.
He is also a gentleman that stab women.

Cute, petite and little girls is not your type huh? I understand.

Espada is also his victims, why ensemble such elite force just to sacrificed them and personally killed them. There is also another example of how gentleman he is.

Blonde, big boobs sexy chick also isn't your type? I see..

Oddly there is one man that still draws breath after hanging out with him all this time.. My theory is Gin will be killed too.. or that they are gay..

Hmmm........

Immortal Jackasses in Manga pt.1

So I posted this on my facebook page, my friends like it, so I thought I should blog this. This is for all the scumbag imbalance overpowered characters that defy their own manga rules and physic, thus making other characters look bad only for the sake of being awesome jackasses. Okay so they're not exactly immortal but at some point they are portrayed to have some god-like power, sometimes even other chars comment they are invincible. They are all jackass though.

#6 God Enel from One Piece

Enel is self-declared god, this guy single-handedly occupied an floating island, pit the primitive and earthlander in some twisted battle royale. Zap old men, women, children, even puppies indiscriminately, then blast the entire island. Why you say? To acquire a ship to fly to the moon to meet other gods, like there's a broadcast from moon "Attention all jackass gods, party at moon! Drunk naked chick for all!" That's a moronic reason as any, didn't anyone tell him there's no oxygen in space, not that he care..

The thing is he's lightning so no one can match up to him, he's also mind reader sort of.. After he blasted everyone, then came Luffy. Fyi rubber can't be zap, at least it make sense there, so he got his ass kicked bad, he managed to get to the moon though..


#5 Aji Tae from Shin Angyo Onshi

When even the mention of his name bring fear and hatred, there is chance that he's a jackass. He plotted a complicated scheme to overthrow the king by poisoned his queen, making the hero killed the queen, give the hero asthma and basically killing a bunch of dudes. He also raised army of undead heroes, mythical swordsmen, summoner and other weird entities. How he pulled it off? He cheated, seriously this guy is almighty douche bag who can teleport or some shit and kill people by staring at them, that's the most cheap tech since death note.

However he died like a bitch, this is not some epic showdown, the hero is just a sick dude, for eff sake. He choked and got slashed by hot chick.. Well there are a bunch of worst ways to die, I guess..

#4 Shishio Makoto from Rurouni Kenshin

Apparently what doesn't kill you, makes you an immortal bastard.. Shishio got burned, literally, by the government, but he didn't die, he became some mummy dictator. This dude read Darwin theory "survival of the fittest" and took it to the extreme (not historically accurate). Just like good dictator he ensemble fighters to burn down a city, maybe he's not too happy about being burned alive. He's extremely strong, he defeated Kenshin, Sano, Saito and Aoshi. He surpassed them in power, speed and tech, of course everyone already wounded and tired while he analyzed their moves like all good bosses do, chill out at the end of dungeon.

Finally Kenshin got his game right and unleashed Ougi Amakakeru Flying Dragon Ultimate Badass Move. It landed spot-on, but still Shishio survived although near death. His woman, Yumi, pleaded for his life, then in some asshole move he stabbed through his woman to landed the last hit. The sick part is Yumi actually grateful that she's of any use, he eventually overload and burned himself and Yumi, leaving trail of ashes like a twisted pseudo emo suicide-homicide version of Romeo and Juliet.

The rest is coming soon..