Chocolate

After Ong-Bak broke open the door for Thai martial arts movies in the US, and The Protector (aka Tom Yum Goong) drove an elephant through that door, director Prachya Pinkaew’s latest effort to pull off the trifecta falls a bit flat. Of course his previous two films starred the spectacular Tony Jaa, while this time out he relies on newcomer “Jeeja” Yanin Vismistananda, but even setting aside the change in leads the action set pieces just aren’t up to the standards of his previous work.

Jeeja plays an autistic young girl named Zen who sets out on a quest to collect on her mother’s past debts in order to pay for mom’s hospital bills. Mom used to be a gangster of some sort but apparently didn’t follow through on her accounts receivables too vigorously, leaving behind a book filled with details about criminal deadbeats on the hook for payment due. Of course deadbeats don’t pay up too easily, so when young Zen comes knocking the gangsters start fighting, leading to much opportunity for martial mayhem.

Pinkaew criminally uses Zen’s autism as a flimsy plot device, trying to pass off her savant-like fighting ability as some kind of new “drunken master” style that actually caused this viewer more annoyance than entertainment. Zen has no formal martial arts training, but instead picks up her skills by watching old movies on tv. The basic setup of every fight is that Zen stumbles into a crime den looking like a strong gust of air would tip her over and sounding like an escapee from a mental ward, then proceeds to kick every ass in the place when her payment request is denied. Since the film isn’t wall to wall fights, that leaves lots of screen time to be filled with Zen’s grating character. There was absolutely no compelling reason to give the character a disability other than as some kind of sexist explanation of how a girl could fight so well. In reality, Jeeja trained for many months to get battle-ready for the film, but Pinkaew’s fantasy construct leaves no room for her exceptional efforts.

As a performer, young Jeeja is dangerously low on the charisma scale and a bit wooden in her fighting as well. Even after all of her training and setting aside her character’s limitations, she seems to lack a certain fluidity that would really sell the action, looking like she’s trying too hard to hit her marks at times. However, she clearly devoted every fiber of her being to putting up the best performance she could muster and she does have quite a number of amazing stunts that make the film worth a look. The best sequence is saved for the end, where she fights baddies on a vertical battlefield leaping from balcony to balcony on a building exterior.

Chocolate is now available on DVD and Bluray.

The Blue Elephant

The Blue Elephant succeeds as a showcase for the animation techniques of its original Thai animation studio but fails to connect as a meaningful motion picture. It’s perfectly pretty to look at, but there’s just not much substance or cohesiveness going on under its trunk. At its best, it announces to the world that Thailand has some significant CG animation talent, while at its worst it exposes the short shrift given to plot and character development. It’s also somewhat derivative of Disney animated hits such as Dumbo, The Lion King, and even a touch of Mulan, which isn’t necessarily a detraction but definitely doesn’t win it any points for originality.

The film focuses on the adventures of a young elephant named Khan as he learns the ways of the world, longs to meet his absent warrior father, and eventually befriends the human prince of his land. His main quest leads him to attempt to locate his father, a mighty warrior for the human army of Siam whose last known whereabouts placed him on the frontlines of an epic war against Burma. Khan eventually becomes the prince’s main steed, placing him firmly in the military path chosen by his father. There are subplots about his budding romance with a female elephant and his separation from and reunion with his mother, but ultimately the story follows Khan’s quest for and emulation of his father.

As a kids movie, the later portion is surprisingly barbaric, exposing what appears to be a centuries-old rift between Siam/Thailand and neighboring Burma. The human and elephant armies go to war in a massive showcase that ends with Khan’s showdown against a much larger and devilish opponent. That’s not to say the scenes are particularly gruesome or frightening, just that this historic Siam vs. Burma conflict seems far more adult and functions as such a central theme that the film eventually feels more like political commentary rather than lighthearted entertainment. The kids might not even notice, but this focus on Thailand’s nationalistic pride really doesn’t translate well here.

As for the animation, the characters are almost too super-deformed, falling way too far to the side of cartoons rather than embracing any naturalistic traits. It’s always a difficult choice for animators to pick a happy medium between goofy animation and physical reality, and this time they tipped too far to the fantasy side, especially in light of the very real war theme embraced later in the film. However, the backgrounds are exceedingly lush and densely populated, the characters are mostly animated well, and the camera movement and blocking is generally up to Hollywood standards, although there’s noticeably a bit too much reliance on perfect CG pans that have fallen out of favor in US productions in recent years as animators attempt to inject virtual jitter to make films seem less like they’re on CG rails. In short, there’s nothing all that objectionable about the animation, as it nearly approaches the quality of an Ice Age or Madagascar, so any fears of a cut-rate project can be put to rest.

The vocal talent is another matter. For the US release through The Jim Henson Company and The Weinstein Company, the producers recruited a few recognizable names to give the film some local credibility and marketability, namely Martin Short, Carl Reiner, and Miranda Cosgrove. However, the entire cast is uniformly abysmal, making this reviewer long for the absent original Thai audio to accompany the included English subs. The performances could possibly be chalked up to poor direction in the localization effort, but whatever the cause, the vocal cast does the film no favors. Also, there’s little attempt to marry the US script to the Thai character speech, so the film constantly seems to have an audio/video synch problem.

The Jim Henson Company is to be commended for including this film under its “Discoveries” banner, apparently an ongoing effort by them to expose US audiences to little-known animated films. However, while it’s great to see this project emerge on US shores and it’s exciting to discover the animation talent present in Thailand, this isn’t a film most viewers will want for their permanent collections. The kids may enjoy it once or twice, and you won’t mind watching the attractive CG work, but it’s far from an essential purchase.

The Blue Elephant is now available on DVD.