Once a Thief by John Woo (Review)
What’s this, a light-hearted criminal caper from the master of heroic bloodshed? Well, so it would seem. For those of you who are only familiar with John Woo thanks to leading man Chow Yun-fat and trademark scenes of twin-fisted .45s, slow-mo gunplay, and shootouts of epic proportions, Once a Thief might come as a bit of a shock. There’s virtually no bloodshed in this film (and what bloodshed there is seems remarkably tame compared to Woo’s other films) and, surprise of all surprises, it’s a comedy! Or, something like that.
Normally, the words “Chow Yun-fat” are all it takes to get me to watch a movie. The man is surely one of the best actors working today. Following the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I only hope more people check out Chow’s considerable filmography. But they might be thrown for a loop with Once a Thief.
In his more prominent roles, Chow succeeds at playing the lone wolf, a guy with his own sense of honor who possesses a considerable talent for unloading copious amounts of lead into his enemies. But Joe, Chow’s character in Once a Thief, is quite a switch: a lovably misogynistic buffoon and carefree playboy. I guess when you’re one of the world’s best art thieves, you can get away with that.
You see, Joe, along with Jim (Leslie Cheung) and Cherie (Cherie Chung) are world-class art thieves, raised that way since childhood by a cruel man who calls upon their talents to make a quick buck. Joe and Cherie have a “relationship,” which mainly consists of him berating her and playing childish jokes on her. Well, it’s hard to take it all too seriously, considering how much Chow yucks it up throughout the movie. Every gesture and insult is exaggerated to the point of absurdity. It’s almost hard to believe this is the same guy who played the stern, dignified Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Anyway, back to the movie… during an art heist gone bad, Joe gets killed, leaving Jim and Cherie to fall in love. Seems Jim has been jealous of Joe all this time, because Cherie’s quite the woman and Jim has been in love with her. But Joe, for reasons unexplained, never actually died, and now he’s back in a wheelchair. When Jim is asked to pull one more job, stealing the painting that caused Joe to get paralyzed in the first place, Joe has to try to rescue him. Meanwhile, Cherie stays behind and looks worried.
The last part of this film is nothing but silly, over the top action sequences as the baddies try to get their mitts on the painting. Of course, it turns out that the trio’s patron has been a heartless bastard all this time, and he thinks nothing of offing his progeny to have his watercolor. I have to hand it to Woo… he certainly came up with some innovative ways for Jim and Joe to deal with their foes, with my favorite being the exploding microwave and flaming basketball. It’s relatively entertaining, especially watching Chow Yun-fat go nuts and drop some kung fu — and his battle with the guy that throws exploding and flaming playing cards is quite nice. But that’s not why you should watch this movie, if you feel so inclined.
Even if you don’t particularly care for Woo’s brand of cinema, you have to admit the man knows how to film his movies. The guy’s a genius when it comes to capturing the mood, motion, and energy of a scene, and Once a Thief is perhaps the best example of this. The cinematography is almost perverse in just how beautiful and vivid the scenes all look. My personal favorite is the scene where Jim and Joe are sneaking around a castle at night, trying to steal a supposedly cursed painting; the movie is painted in blues so thick and rich they’re almost claustrophobic, and the use of smoke and moonlight is just the icing on the cake. It almost makes up for the laser limbo scene immediately afterwards.
DVD Specs
As you might have gathered, the video on this DVD is pretty pristine. The colors are rich and vibrant, and I never noticed any bad artifacting. The only thing I noticed was some jittering and weird distortion that lasted a few seconds, but that may be due to the fact that this was a rental DVD. New ones may not have this problem. The extras are satisfactory and pretty typical based on the other Taiseng releases I’ve seen: minor production notes on the movie, cast, and crew; a trailer that makes the film look more action-packed than it actually is (though it does feature a nice use of Carmina Burana); and an upcoming releases featurette. The real plus is the bevy of language and subtitle options that you’re given; someone knew what they were doing when they put this DVD together.