skjam

Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion (1977) dir. Karl Liao (Chinese title Yin xiao yu jian cui yu shi)

Chu Siew Yen (Angela Mao) is sent by her martial arts instructor to look up his brother, who he hasn't heard from in a while. No one in the town he was living in knows where he is now. Or if they know, they aren't saying. Miss Chu is no great shakes as a detective, so she knows at least some of these people are lying or holding back information, but darned if she can figure out which. It doesn't help that several of this people are engaged in internal politics that pit them against each other as well as her as an outsider.

Turns out her master's brother is also the only person who knows who killed Miss Chu's parents. There's another wandering martial artist looking for a missing girl for some reason, and a pair of jade lions that would somehow make the possessor of the pair the king of kung fu. (This is never explained.)

And that's about it for the coherent parts of the plot. Mostly it's a set up for fights as the poorly explained motivations and alliances clash.

The fight sequences are varied in quality; the most interesting ones are about two thirds in where first Chu Siew Yen must use her telescoping spear to battle about twenty women (?) armed with giant artificial lotus flowers that have various gimmicks, then infiltrates a prison filled with traps and guards that clearly have practiced what to do if someone breaks in and sets off the traps a lot.

The only commercially available cut has poor formatting and dub sound quality. But Angela Mao looks good in this.

Really only for Angela Mao completists and those who really enjoy C-grade kung fu movies.

Mr. Nice Guy (1997) dir. Sammo Kam-Bo Hung

The place is Melbourne, Australia. Reporter Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and her cameraman Richard (Peter Houghton) were secretly filming a drug deal between suit and tie mobsters lead by Giancarlo (Richard Norton) and the more street gang "Demons" led by Grank (Peter Lindsay) when the deal went very wrong and the ensuing violence revealed the presence of the press. Richard was wounded and captured, but Diana managed to get outside with the videotape.

During the ensuing chase through the city, Diana ran into television chef Jackie (Jackie Chan) who helped her with his martial arts skills. Not that he had much choice as the gangsters assumed he was her ally. The two finally escape, but not before Diana's evidence video was accidentally exchanged for a tape of one of Jackie's cooking show episodes. That tape is subsequently borrowed by the grandchildren of Jackie's foster father and cooking partner Baggio (Barry Otto).

Now the criminals are after both Diana and Jackie for the videotape, as well as fighting each other. And they're not too particular about who else they hurt in the process. Jackie may have to stop being Mr. Nice Guy for just a little while.

This action comedy is a bit more on the action side for a Jackie Chan movie. Jackie's martial arts skills are justified by having him want to be a cop growing up, and training for such, but this being forbidden by his late father, who wanted him to have a safer career path, and enforced by foster father Baggio. Baggio's own son Romeo (Vince Poletto) was more rebellious and became a police officer himself.

Side note: Despite having this direct line to the cops, Jackie refuses to get them fully involved until after his Chinese girlfriend Miki (Miki Lee) is kidnapped. At that point they become useless until the very end of the movie, easily being outsmarted by the criminals. Romeo eventually does find the videotape, but by that time both the mobsters and gangbangers have committed so many other crimes in public that it has become a moot point.

Good: Many cool action scenes and stunts. The location shooting is excellent and I suspect inhabitants of Melbourne appreciate the familiar local scenery. This movie is above average in the Jackie Chan filmography for female roles. While Miki is admittedly a shrieking damsel in distress, Diana and Lakisha (Karen McLymont), Jackie's production assistant, prove savvy and active for people not trained in combat. Also there's Sandy (Rachel Blakely), the most intelligent of the Demons and their second in command, who has a decently meaty role. However, the cut of the movie I saw just disappears Diana and Sandy towards the end.

Sammo Hung gives himself a funny cameo as a bicyclist who gets involved in one of the action scenes.

Also, just to change things up, the climax of the movie does not have Jackie Chan use his martial arts skills to resolve the plot, but a rather more spectacular method. (That got the production company banned from ever filming in that part of Australia again.) It's cathartic.

Less good: After the baddies lose track of the videotape the first time, they should have realized it was futile to chase after it. With the technology of the time, it would have taken less than an hour to make multiple copies (especially if you have access to a television studio as Jackie does). Only the fact that the tape has been misplaced keeps up the illusion that it can be captured. Cut your losses and run, fellas.

Content notes: Martial arts, gun and bomb violence; multiple deaths. Diana has to run around in her underwear for an extended period. Torture.

Overall, a decent martial arts action film, and Jackie Chan is excellent as always. Just don't think too deeply about the premise.

Militant Eagle (1978) dir. Chia Chih Li

At the end of a three-year war, a general bids a fond farewell to one of his best officers, who wants to return to civilian life. We jump to ten years later, after another war has just ended. By imperial (I think it's the Tang Dynasty) decree, there's a tax holiday to allow businesses to get back on their feet. But in the small city that's the main setting, the corrupt Magistrate Cho and his police are extorting fees and fines from the small merchants and entrepreneurs. A street entertainer is chased off because he cannot afford the outrageous performance fee. A cook is bullied by the cowardly Sergeant and his constables, but his kung fu is good and he's able to hold his own. A slightly more wealthy man who knows the cook advises him to more patience, since his daughter, also a notable martial artist, will soon be returning to the city to help out.

The cook's family are brutally murdered (and it's implied his wife was raped before death), and when the female martial artist returns home, she discovers that her parents have been assassinated by poison dart. It's then revealed that the street performer and his motley orphans are in fact government agents--he's the officer we saw in the first scene. The Imperial envoy will soon arrive to make an inspection, and if they can convince him of the magistrate's evildoing, all should be well.

To the agent's surprise, the envoy is the general from the first scene, now risen in the government. He's received grievance letters not just from our protagonists, but from multiple other people we didn't see. Magistrate Cho and his men are rounded up and found guilty, about to be sentenced to prison. But wait, we're only twenty minutes in, it can't be that easy. Sure enough, Magistrate Cho claims he's not the ringleader, and is assassinated before he can say more.

The real villain turns out to be former rebel Fang Hsu Kung (Ying Bai), who'd faked his death to hide out and regroup. He decides now is the time to strike with his hidden army. Can our heroes figure out what's going on, find the hidden base and defeat Fang's deadly henchmen?

There's some good martial arts battle scenes, especially in the last half hour, which is one long series of individual and team fights. A little emotional depth is seen when the poison dart assassin comes to realize that his loyalty to Fang is misplaced.

Other characters are less fleshed out, such as Fang's bratty teenage daughter who is just wandering around for most of the film. The orphans the government agent/street performer is training are annoying comic relief children, and the need to make them relevant in the final battle turns one of the fights into slapstick, which really doesn't work with the tone. (Except for the very end of that fight, which is straight out of a horror movie instead.)

And then at the very end, there's a scene with a Buddhist nun who informs us that revenge is bad, actually.

Content note: Martial arts combat, some blood. Child death. Implied rape, suicide. Spousal abuse, which results in a lingering death. A man's eyes are put out. Torture, including whipping and branding.

The movie's a bit of a mess, honestly, and could have done with either fewer henchmen characters or more establishing dialogue. But there's fun stuff mixed in, and it would be worthwhile for a viewing on a rainy afternoon.

Drunken Monkey (2003) dir. Chia-Liang Liu

Bill Man (Chia-Liang Liu) is the top rider for the Wa Biao delivery company. While on a job, he discovers that his brother Pao (Chen-Huan Chang) has been using their deliveries to facilitate opium smuggling. Pao feigns remorse, but promptly leads Bill into an ambush, as he's in partnership with Yui (Kuan-Chun Chi), another top employee, and they've suborned most of the others. Pao is tired of living in Bill's shadow, and wants to get rich. He stabs Bill in the abdomen and twists the knife, but it still takes a lot more fighting combined with Yui and the minions to finally push Bill off a bridge into the river. Pao mourns the necessity of killing Bill for slightly less than a minute. Time to turn the delivery company into a full-time smuggling operation!

After the dramatic first twenty minutes, it's time for the wacky adventures of the Chan family. Kai Yip (Wing-Kin Lau)and Tak (his same-age great-uncle) (Jing Wu) are teenagers who are into the study of "Monkeyish Fist", a form of kung fu. Kai Yip is primarily an artist who wants to create an illustrated manual of the art, while Tak is a more natural athlete. Kai Yip's father, a successful businessman, wants Kai Yip to concentrate on his studies to take over the firm. When Tak and Kai Yip's zany antics get them transferred to a school in another city, they detour to another city as they've heard Man Bill is the tops in Monkey Fist. (They haven't heard that he died.)

After running across Mandy (Shannon Yao), a young woman who clearly knows Monkeyish Fist, the Chans manage to track down the actually still alive Bill, who's been hiding out at Mandy's home in exchange for teaching her kung fu. Tak imitates Bill's trademark "one hand four stances" move where government detective Hung Yat Fu (Chia-Hui Liu) can recognize it. Hung owes Bill big time, and wants to track him down, but doesn't know that Pao was his attempted killer, so also tells him.

The two storylines are brought together as Kai Yip and Tak inadvertently bring the other interested parties to Mandy's doorstep, and combat ensues. Things do not go well for the protagonists, and it's time for a training montage!

This was the last film directed by Chia-Liang Liu. It's...uneven. The martial arts scenes are nifty, and for a man pushing seventy, his moves are impressive. (Any weakness is attributed to him never fully recovering from the early gut wound.) The comedy bits are dreadful. I mean, I understand why actors who are definitely not teenagers are cast as teenagers, but it causes a disconnect that makes me find the gags cringeworthy instead of funny.

I think it's supposed to be taking place in the 1920s? Bill and his riders wear Stetsons and dusters out of the Wild West, the "western" style clothing seems to come from several different decades, and the Chinese clothing is mixed.

Content notes: Monkeyish Fist requires its practitioners (including the teenagers) to imbibe wine for best effect. Some gore. Pao gives Mandy a drug overdose and rips off her outermost clothing layer, implying that he's going to rape her. (It's unclear if he would have followed through on this threat.}

Action fans might want to watch a cut of this movie that's all of the "serious" scenes with just a synopsis of the comedy scenes to explain the gaps in the plot. More recommended for those martial art movie fans who enjoy the mood whiplash.

Fist of Fury (1972) dir. Wei Lo

It is the 1930s, and Imperial Japan is on the rise. In Shanghai, they hold great power, especially in the International Settlement, and the native Chinese are treated as second-class citizens in their own country. Martial artist Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee) has been away for some years, and is unaware of how bad things have gotten. He returns to marry his childhood sweetheart Yen (Maria Yi), only to find that his teacher Huo Yuanjia has recently passed away. Chen is grief-stricken, even more so than the other students of Huo's martial arts school. But worse is to come.

The memorial service is interrupted by representatives of a nearby Japanese karate school. They present the mourners with a sign reading "Sick Man of Asia" and Interpreter Wu (Ping Ou-Wei) taunts the Huo school with accusations of weakness and cowardice. Still bound by their school's principles of pacifism, only using martial arts in self-defense or defense of the nation, the mourners cannot respond, though the hot-headed Chen is barely able to contain himself.

Later, Chen goes to the karate school to return their "gift" and succeeds in provoking their students into attacking him, giving him the excuse to beat them all up. Unfortunately, while the getting beat up part was not supposed to go so badly, this is exactly what Hiroshi Suzuki (Chikara Hashimoto), leader of the Japanese school, had planned. Now he has an excuse to bring in the authorities to close down the Huo school. (There is apparently some personal bad blood between Huo and Suzuki that the Huo students are unaware of and is never explained.)

The Huo students plan to have Chen leave Shanghai on the next train to draw off the heat, but then Chen learns that Huo's death was not due to illness, but deliberate murder. Chen kills the direct murderers, then seeks bloody revenge on the evil Suzuki and his henchmen. This leads into the final tragedy.

This revenge tragedy was loosely based on the actual death of Huo Yuanjia under mysterious circumstances. As the disclaimer at the beginning of the movie explains, the story goes with the popular hypothesis that Huo was poisoned by the Japanese.

Good: As is proper for tragedy, the lead character is a man of superior qualities, a skilled martial artist (the first combat scene makes the Japanese students look weak, but no, Chen is just that much more awesome at martial arts than anyone else), honorable, and deeply loyal to his teacher. But he has a fatal flaw, not considering the effects his actions will have on others. Each time he strikes against the villains, it makes things worse for his fellow students. Mind, the story doesn't give him a lot of other options. It's made clear that if Chen doesn't seek vengeance himself, the Japanese will get away unscathed and Huo's death will not have justice done.

There are some bang-up martial arts sequences, including Bruce Lee's first cinematic use of nunchucks. One of the highlights is Chen battling Russian refugee Petrov (Robert Baker), who's strong enough to drive nails through wood with his bare hands.

Translator Wu is a hissable villain, sucking up to the powerful invaders even while they treat him like dirt.

Less good: The politics is heavy-handed, reportedly to the point that Bruce Lee was uncomfortable with how they were portrayed (that and personal disagreements led to him no longer working with the director.)

Due to low budget, no effort was made to hide 1970s fashions and hairstyles on extras in some scenes, breaking immersion in 1930s Shanghai. Also, there's a fellow who's apparently supposed to be a Sikh in one scene, with an appalling makeup job.

Yen is barely in the film and is only named in the credits; she's just there to be a love interest for Chen.

Content note: Racism against the Chinese is a major theme throughout, depicting them as the oppressed underdogs. The structure of the film thus makes the Japanese as a people the villains. (But then again, see actual events in China at the time.) A park in the International Settlement has a sign forbidding
"dogs and Chinese" with exceptions for dogs accompanied by white people.

Lots of kung fu violence, with a small amount of blood. Corpses are hung up on display.

Overall: An okay movie carried by Bruce Lee's performance. Recommended for Bruce Lee fans.

Golden Swallow (1968) dir. Cheh Chang

"Golden Swallow" Hsieh Wo Yeh (Pei-Pei Cheng) is happy living in an isolated valley with her new friend and protector "Iron Whip" Han Tao (Lieh Lo). One day they learn of a wandering warrior called "Silver Roc" (Jimmy Wang Yu) who ruthlessly exterminates criminals with his swooping sword style. Golden Swallow wonders if it could be her fellow martial arts disciple "Little Roc" Hsiao Peng. Little Roc was orphaned and scarred by bandits as a child, and sworn vengeance on all criminals as a result. He was a brilliant sword student, but secretly practiced dangerous forbidden techniques. One day he vanished, and when no word came back, everyone assumed he'd gotten himself killed.

As it happens, Silver Roc is indeed Little Roc all grown up. He spends his time wandering about, finding criminals, and killing them, leaving no survivors. But he's lonely, and wants to contact Golden Swallow. So he's obtained a number of darts that look like Golden Swallow's trademark weapon, and leaves one at the site of each massacre. Naturally, the friends, loved ones and relatives of the deceased crooks decide that Golden Swallow must be responsible for these atrocities. They form a revenge squad under the leadership of the biggest bandit gang, the Gold Dragons.

The first Golden Swallow hears about this is when a team of revenge-seekers arrive in the valley to seek vengeance for the deaths of people she's never even heard of. While Golden Swallow doesn't deliberately go out of her way to kill people, she sees nothing wrong with lethally defending herself. She realizes that Silver Roc must have framed her for his killings, but cannot imagine why. She and Iron Whip separately leave the valley to seek out Silver Roc and get the deaths to stop multiplying.

This turns out to be a sequel to Come Drink With Me, which also starred Pei-Pei Cheng, but you absolutely do not have to have seen the previous film, since the events in it are never referred to. Despite the title, Silver Roc is actually the focus character of this movie, cutting down bandits like wheat before a scythe. He's also something of a poet, but this is more to give Golden Swallow a clue to track him down.

Make no mistake, the people Silver Roc (and Golden Swallow and sometimes Iron Whip) kills are either horrible criminals or those who work for them. The Cao Brothers, who frame a child for theft so they can steal his family's land, are particularly despicable. But it's also clear that Silver Roc has long since abandoned any notion of proportionate punishment and just revels in killing anyone he can justify doing so. In the end, his all-consuming revenge ruins everyone's lives.

I have to point out one special moment of expectation-twisting. You'd think the bandit who disobeys orders because he won't kill the innocent would join the good guys or at least be relevant to the ongoing plot. You'd be wrong.

Content note: Lots of violence, most bloody and some downright gory. Suicide. Harm to children. Silver Roc is implied to be sleeping with a prostitute as a substitute for Golden Swallow.

While there were no more Golden Swallow films, this one did not hurt Pei-Pei Cheng's career at all, and launched Jimmy Wang Yu into stardom. It's got nice scenery, some stylish combat scenes (including the big moment at the end after most kung fu movies would have ended), and the acting's decent.

Fans of violent vigilante heroes like the Punisher should really appreciate this movie.

Legend of the Red Dragon (1994) dir. Jing Wong

Hung Hei Kwun (Jet Li) and his fellow villagers oppose the oppressive Manchu government. One night, Hung returns from a journey to find that the village has been massacred. As it happens, the only survivor is his toddler son Ting (Miu Tse). Hung allows his son to "choose" between a sword which represents revenge and a toy that represents Ting going to join his mother in the after life. Ting chooses the path of vengeance. The next evening, as Hung is creating a funeral pyre, another village survivor appears. Ma Ling-Yee (Chunhua Ji) turns out to have sold out to the Qing Dynasty forces for the considerable bounty they've placed on Hung's head. They battle, and Ma appears to die to a combination of spear wounds and burns.

Several years later, father and son are still on the run and desperately short on funds. When Hung's own brother turns out to have sold him out as well, Hung is forced to accept a bodyguard job from the wealthy Ma Kai-sin (Sung-Young Chen), no relation to Ma Ling-Yee, to eat. Kai-sin is a greedy jerk, but in genuine need of a bodyguard. For starters, he is the target of a scam by pretty con artist Red Bean (Chingmy Yau) and her mother (Deannie Ip) to trick him into marrying Red Bean so they can rob him blind. More worryingly, Kai-sin's son trains in martial arts at the local Shaolin Temple, where he and four other boys have been tattooed with parts of a map leading to the Shaolin treasure.

Ma Ling-Yee turns out to be still alive; the life-saving medical treatments have made him "invincible" but hideously scarred and he rides around in a metal car of sorts. Ling-Yee and other villainous Manchu agents slaughter the Shaolin monks and learn the probable location of the map boys. They attack during the wedding celebration of Kai-Sin and Red Bean, so bodyguard and thieves must band together to protect themselves and the children.

This movie was also titled "The New Legend of Shaolin", and is very loosely based on an actual martial artist of the time period. The English cub title derives from a derelict building called "Red Dragon Pavilion" where some of the action takes place.

Good: interesting fight scenes, with lots of wire fu. Hung wields an extendible spear that is effectively magic. Ting's action scenes are also well-choreographed, and his young actor is very good for his age. I could feel chemistry between Hung and the flirtatious Red Bean, and Red Bean's mother gets some nice zingers. Jet Li is impressive as usual.

Less good: There's some tone issues as the script can't make its mind up whether this is a serious kung fu revenge story with all the tragic resonance that implies (and bits ripped from Lone Wolf and Cub) or a funny kids' kung fu movie with gags and cute children. (Why is there an active wax museum in a ghost town?) Each aspect tends to undercut the other, rather than blending into a cohesive whole.

Content note: Death of children, children in peril. Lots of violence, some gory. Red Bean tries to frame Hung for rape. Red Bean's mother semi-accidentally feels up a man. There's use of the "evil eunuch" stereotype which will come across differently to most Western viewers.

Overall: While the individual scenes are good, the movie just doesn't come together, making this one of Jet Li's lesser films. See if you can find the uncut version with the Chinese soundtrack.

Supercop (1992) dir. Stanley Tong

After two spectacularly successful cases, Chan Kar Kui (Jackie Chan, "Kevin" in the dub) has acquired the nickname "Supercop." And now there's a new dangerous assignment on the horizon. His superiors trick him into volunteering by letting overhear a conversation about how they feel the case is too dangerous even for Kar Kui. Since it's a secret assignment, naturally Kar Kui has to keep his tour guide girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung) in the dark, making it sound like a milk run courier task.

The actual assignment is to infiltrate a prison camp in Communist China and free Panther (Wah Yuen), the brother of drug kingpin Chaibat (Kenneth Tsang.) This will, in theory, allow Kar Kui to get inside the drug smuggling gang and take them down from within. The escape goes off mostly well, despite some hiccups. Panther and his new best friend head to Wu Han(!) where they are joined by Red Chinese/Interpol agent Jessica Yang(Michelle Yeoh), posing as Kar Kui's sister.

Our heroes manage to convince Chaibat to let them join his gang in Hong Kong, but it's soon time to head off to the Thai border, where Chaibat uses an elaborate plan involving a bulletproof vest with dynamite plates to corner the market in heroin. But to pay for it, Chaibat will need access to his Swiss bank account. And the codes are in the possession of Chaibat's wife, who is about to be sentenced to death in Malaysia.

Time for another prison break, but at this point May shows up in Malaysia and mistakes Kar Kui's fake sibling relationship with Jessica as dating. Sparks fly, and this leads into the final exciting action sequence.

This was the third in the Police Story series in Hong Kong, but retitled for the American market (and a theme song by Devo!) With the handoff of Hong Kong from Britain to China a few scant years away, the theme is cooperation, even though the mainland officers are straitlaced and are irritated by Kar Kui's more casual ways.

Jackie Chan plays Kar Kui as someone who may be "super" in some ways, but is still very human and flawed. He's far too easily distracted by a pretty face (and his initial behavior towards Officer Yang is unprofessional.) And while he's good in a fight, Kar Kui has some bad luck and is certainly not invulnerable.

Michelle Yeoh's Jessica Yang is a cool, competent professional, though she does lighten up a bit when in disguise to tease Kar Kui as a sister should. While the movie goes ahead and points out she's pretty, it doesn't waste time playing her as sexy or have the camera ogle her body. The character was popular enough to get her own spinoff movie.

Wah Yuen and Kenneth Tsang do a good job as the villains, with the latter chewing the scenery as he arranges for more and more death. Maggie Cheung's May has a more thankless damsel in distress role, and is off camera for most of the movie.

As always with Jackie Chan movies, there's some top-notch stunts and fight scenes, including a traintop battle.

I note that this is one of the movies where the cops committing a number of crimes (grand theft auto, aiding in prison breaks, murder) is supposed to be justified by the criminals being just so much worse. The good news is that none of these shenanigans will come out at the villains' trials because there's no one left to arrest.

Recommended for Hong Kong action fans--this movie works fine as a standalone, but purists may want to see the first two movies beforehand.

This month's CRUD Challenge movies will be three martial arts action thrillers...and a ringer.

(Eventually I will run out of Jackie Chan movies, but not quite yet.)

eta: For comparison, the theme I chose for my Challenge partner was "Too Much Water" which includes two flood movies, a beach romance and a Southern gothic set in the swamp.

Chocolate (2008) dir. Prachya Pinkaew

Zin (Ammara Siripong) was a ruthless loan shark and former lover of Thai mob boss Number Eight (Pongpat Wachirabunjong) until she fell in love with Yakuza member Masashi (Hiroshi Abe). Number Eight violently objected to the relationship, which he felt was an invasion of his territory, and Masashi was forced to return to Japan. Shortly thereafter, Zin gave birth to a girl she named Zen (Yanin Vismitananda). Zen turned out to have special needs (somewhere on the autism spectrum), so Zin retired from active criminality.

Years passed, and Zin effectively adopted neighbor boy Moom (Taphon Phopwandee, "Mike" in the English dub), who becomes Zen's guardian/caretaker/friend. Moom realizes that while Zen may have trouble verbalizing, compulsive behaviors, and difficulty dealing with breaks in her routines, she also has uncanny hearing and reflexes, allowing her to catch things thrown to or at her, even when she can't see them. He convinces Zen to use these skills in street performances to earn petty cash. Zen also turns out to have the ability to learn martial arts moves by watching other people do them and then practicing by herself--there's a Muay Thai school next door, and she likes Tony Jaa movies.

Zin's smoking habit catches up with her, and she develops cancer that requires expensive chemotherapy. Moom wants to help out, but street entertainers don't make that kind of money. But then he stumbles across Zin's old accounts book and realizes that a lot of people owe her cash. Moom has only ever known Zin as a kindly single mom, so doesn't initially question why these people owe her money. He and Zen go out to collect these debts.

Unfortunately, the biggest debtors listed are the kind of businessmen who need loans from the mob and tend to employ a lot of goons. The first is an ice factory owner who naturally refuses to pay a couple of teenagers on a more than a decade old note. Zen has it fixed in her mind that her mother needs the money to have medical treatment and insists. The ice man sets his goons on the kids and Zen whips out her sweet martial arts moves. She gets the money.

A couple more collection trips and fight scenes later, Zin finally finds out what her children are up to. She realizes that this will enrage Number Eight, and sends a letter to Masashi to beg for help. Number Eight's gang intercepts the letter, which enrages the mob boss even more (he's the type to hold a grudge forever.) Now the family must fight not just for money, but for their lives.

After Ong-Bak (see my previous review) and The Protector, director Prachya Pinkaew decided to switch things up with a female lead for his next big action movie.

I have to admit, going in cold I wasn't even sure that I was watching the right movie. It opens with an extended sequence of the steamy romance between Masashi (who wasn't even mentioned in the DVD box blurb) and Zin, then scenes from Zen's childhood to set up her backstory before finally getting to the promised martial arts action. The title turns out to be because Zen's favorite sweet is candy-coated chocolate pieces, played for drama at one point.

Good: Sweet, sweet martial arts action sequences. My favorite is the abattoir scene, which uses OSHA violations for comedy. (Warning: not for the squeamish!) The big final fight goes on a teensy too long as Number Eight's goons just keep spawning and spawning. Seriously, crime in Bangkok probably dropped by ten percent while all these thugs were in the hospital/morgue. Zen's thing is copycatting, so we get scenes reminiscent of Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet Li as well as Tony Jaa.

Maybe not so good: This movie plays the "disability superpower" trope absolutely straight. Having autism may cause Zen many problems in everyday life, but gives her abilities that make her a martial arts savant. Once she starts using her abilities to fight, the only opponent that gives her any real difficulty in a hand to hand fight is a young man who appears to have a form of Tourette's Syndrome that makes his dance battle moves difficult to predict (Kittitat Kowahagul as "Epileptic Boxer", mercifully named "Thomas" in the dub.)

Media representation of autism spectrum disorders is an especially contentious subject, and I am not educated enough on the matter to give an opinion on how well this movie does--I ask that commentators be respectful of each other in the replies.

Speaking of representation, Number Eight's elite goons are listed in the credits as "Lady Boys" and Number Eight's own gender presentation becomes a bit more mixed as he ages. It's never brought up in dialogue, and no one ever treats them differently from the other criminals, so yay for that, but it also feeds into the "effeminate villain" stereotype that media has, so feels kind of icky.

Overall: Great as an action movie, but the representation issues may sink it for some viewers. Approach with caution.