Variety reports that Magnet Releasing, the Asian genre division of Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American distribution rights to action director Prachya Pinkaew’s latest martial arts pic, CHOCOLATE.
The film follows in the tradition of other Thai martial arts actioners like ONG BAK and BORN TO FIGHT. It stars JeeJa Yanin, the newest discovery of Pinkaew, as an autistic girl who picks up martial arts skills from watching movies and uses them to help her ailing mother collect debts from ruthless criminals.
The big news is that Magnolia is bringing the film to theaters in 2009. As a foreign-language release with an unknown lead, it’s doubtful it will be anything but a limited theatrical run. We can still hope.
It had initially been reported that The Weinstein Company had acquired rights to the pic but for reasons unknown the distributor lost interest. They had previously snatched up and released Tony Jaa’s THE PROTECTOR in 2007.
Source: Variety
Tags: JeeJa Yanin, Prachya Pinkaew, upcoming









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