Once A Thief is the first collaboration between John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat after their hugely successful THE KILLER. The movie is about three art thieves that want to still just ONE more picture before they retire. As always it is rather predictable that something very dramatic will happen, but you`ll have to see the movie to find out exactly what. Once a Thief can be called a romantic violence-comedy. The actionscenes are nicely directed, but you won`t be blown away by them as by those in THE KILLER. I don`t like many of the jokes in Once A thief. I think most of them are rather corny and just plain stupid. This is a nice example, where a Hong-kongfilm is TOO weird for a Western audience to really appriciate. But I`m sure that Eastern fans will love it to bits, I didn`t. Worth a look though, and a million times better than the EXTREMELY POOR American re-make from 1996. 7,5/10
Review of Once a Thief
