Chocolate (Thailand, 2008) and Machine Girl (Japan, 2008)

I was a little bit out of it yesterday, so I'm sorry for the lack updates. To make up for it, here are two reviews I wrote months ago for the print version of "V-Comet" (http://vcomet.blogspot.com/) that never saw the light of day. Enjoy! And please, don't hurt me.

CHOCOLATE (Thailand, 2008)

Director: Prachya Pinkaew, Starring: JeeJa Yanin

“From the team that brought you Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goon: A girl beats a bunch of people to a bloody pulp!"

TRAILER HERE (Skip to the minute and a half mark)

*approaches the desk* The copy of "Chocolate" I watched didn’t have subtitles. I’ll even cop out to fast forwarding when the things started to melt into over-dramatic slime. I know, I’m bad. You can beat me up with lots of elbows, fists and crazy finishing moves because this movie STILL got me all riled up for some fights. Don’t get me wrong, Director Prachya Pinkaew still doesn’t know how to put together a comprehensible film (but he does know how to shoot a pretty one). The story of an autistic girl trying to solve a murder (?) is slow, heavy handed and scatter-shot, but really, when you have action this good (from the mind of Panna Rittikrai) it doesn't really matter. And while nothing reaches the height of their past collaborations with Tony Jaa, the stuff on display is still bone crunchingly creative. Female New-Comer JeeJa Yanin may seem a little stiff at first but the sheer amount of acrobatics she pulls off will impress even the most jaded martial arts snob and gives you an excuse to sell this as a “Feminist Action flick” to your cynical girlfriend. The use of multi-layered locations is also incredibly high on the eye-candy scale, with the climatic “Fight on a Side of a Building” probably guilty of killing at least half a dozen Thai stunt men.

DVD: The Weinstein company is going to release this on their "Dragon Dynasty" label in a few months, but until then you can pre-order the soon to be released HK version (Cheap but bare bones) at HKFLIX (here)

THE MACHINE GIRL (Japan, 2008)

“There’s a machine gun arm, a school girl outfit and a soft core porn actress. SOLID GOLD!”

Director: Noboru Iguchi Starring: Asami, Honoka, Yuva Ishikawa.

TRAILER HERE (Bloody. Very Bloody. And there's ninjas.)

The Machine Girl is a surprisingly well put together piece of exploitation that tries so hard you can’t help yourself from smling as you're covered in its geysers of arterial blood. The kick-ass poster sums up the film in one startling image: Young girl gets her family killed and her arm chopped off. She replaces it with a machine gun and SEEKS REVENGE! Against all odds, the film manages to look slick despite it having such a low budget and being shot on DV production; not only is all the chainsaw action lit correctly, but it's also competently shot and directed. The acting is expectedly over the top, SFX are cheap (Duh) and they come so fast and furious in the last act that every gore hound will be satiated. Which brings me to my main problem with the film: There are only so many geysers of shooting blood I can take before I start getting a little bored. The audience I was with was hootering and hollering at first but slowly died down once we saw the Umpteenth head get ripped off. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing; just that there should have been a little bit more variation in the kills. (Ninja stars? Again?) Still, this is a keeper for everyone hankering for some splattery fun.

DVD: Because the film was funded by an American Company (Tokyo Shock), there's going to be an extremely cheap DVD release happening on June 3rd. It should be available at your local FutureShop, Best Buy or HMV.