Trailer: ‘Chocolate’ rain of Muay Thai strikes

I have a new first love and I don’t even know how to pronounce her name. It’s no contest. Nicharee Vismistananda is this year’s “it” girl, even if takes another year or more for the rest of the world to catch on. With wholesome good looks and unholy ass-whippin’ ability, she is about to unleash several years of intensive screen-fight training upon Thai audiences and in the meantime the rest of us get to lap up a new trailer and images.

Nicharee is the latest protégé of Thailand’s action film master Panna Rittikrai, the guy who trained Tony Jaa. She plays Zen, a young autistic woman with virtuosic fighting ability honed from watching martial arts movies and living near a Muay Thai academy. It’s a skill that comes in handy when she decides to collect on debts owed to her mother, Zin (Ammara Siripong), a mistress of yakuza boss Masashi (Hiroshi Abe) who falls ill after being beaten up by mobsters.

CHOCOLATE director Prachya Pinkaew discovered Nicharee in 2003 during casting for Rittikrai’s BORN TO FIGHT remake. While the CHCOLATE script was being developed with her mind, Rittikrai began developing Nicharee into a screen fighter. The payoff can easily be seen in the film’s trailer. It’s too early to call it for certain but I’m beginning to think we have our first true screen-fighting successor to Michelle Yeoh.

CHOCOLATE opens in Thailand on February 7th, 2008. Variety reports that Indo-Overseas Films has nabbed distribution for India. I’m still waiting see who has picked it up for North America. The Weinstein Company bought rights to Tony Jaa’s ONG BAK 2 and no doubt has this one on their radar at least.

(Thanks to SamoanDragon3175 for indirectly bringing the trailer to my attention.)

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.twitchfilm.net
http://www.deknang.com
http://www.nangdee.com
http://www.variety.com

Tags: autism, Chocolate (2008), Muay Thai, taekwondo, thailand, Videos, yakuza