Ah, asskicking—the true universal language. Lately, few films have kicked as much ass as Ong Bak and The Protector, both starring Tony Jaa and directed by Prachya Pinkaew. Chocolate is Pinkaew’s next flick, and Twitch has the low-down:

While Pinkaew and his star Tony Jaa have had a fairly public falling out recently—no doubt triggered in part by Jaa’s desire to direct Ong Bak 2 himself and resulting in Pinkaew’s cancellation of Jaa feature project Sword—he is quite confident he has a new star here in Nicharee “Jeeja” Vismistananda. Don’t let youth or gender fool you, Vismistananda has been training under the personal guidance of Jaa’s mentor and fight choreographer Panna Rittikrai for years in preparation for this role so you know she’s got the goods. In Chocolate she plays an autistic girl who goes on a mission to collect debts to save her ill mother, a course of action that puts her on a collision course with gangs of both the local Thai and Japanese varieties.

Yes! “An autistic girl who goes on a mission to collect debts to save her ill mother”! Anyway, here we go. This is somehow bewildering and great at the same time.

Thanks to my buddy Ezra for the heads up.