[.ca] Once A Thief

From Amazon.com:
A romantic art-heist comedy, far lighter in tone than most of director John Woo's work, and in places much sillier. As kids, Chow Yun-fat, Cherie Chung, and Leslie Cheung (A Chinese Ghost Story) were starving street urchins together. They are rescued from the law and trained by a Fagin-like older crook, who transforms them into glossy international cat burglars. The best sections (especially the opening and closing heists) are as masterfully smooth as any action set pieces in the Woo canon. But the tone wavers alarmingly, from the sophisticated (Chow as Cary Grant) to the savage to the sentimental and back again, with a disastrous slapstick coda set in the states, in which the baby food hits the fan. The busy plotting distracts us from a strong theme: the struggle between good and bad father figures (the other is a stalwart cop played by Chu Kong) for the souls of these noble criminals. Not to be confused with the rather limp 1995 remake, produced by Woo for Canadian TV in 1995, with The X-Files' sinister Krycek, Nicholas Lea, surprisingly effective in the Chow part. --David Chute

awesome:
Director John Woo ("A Better Tomorrow", "M:I2") contributes a lot to the success of Chow Yun-Fat ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "A Better Tomorrow", "Hard-Boiled Cop") and Leslie Cheung ("Rouge", "A Better Tomorrow", "God of Guns") - one of the best acting pairs ever seen in the cinematic industry. Pierce Brosnan's "The Thomas Crown Affair" was an attempt to completely copy John Woo's "Once A Thief", which completely succeeded in being creative, original, and with just the right amount of action. Unpredictable, and with some comic relief, the plot is highly original. (That is, until "The Thomas Crown Affair" brutally tried to copy it lately.)The technology used in the movie itself is a reason to buy "Once A Thief" - it's highly impressive. One of Chow Yun Fat and Leslie Cheung's best performances. Must-buy. - Priscilla

Classic Romantic-action Movie!:
If you like John Woo, this is one movie you don't want to miss! This movie is packed with John Woo's classic action, romance humor and cleverness. The story line is simple enough that you don't have to read the subtitles; just sit back and enjoy the actions and jokes. The cast is another excellent choice of Woo! Teaming up Yun-Fat (as Joe) the cool, heroic figure and Leslie Cheung (as Jim) the pretty, cleaver boy, plus Cherie Chung (as Cherie the cute girl next door, you got endless action and fun! As to all of my friends, I highly recommend this movie to you!

Another typical HK crook fighting plot:
Despite its action-packed storyline with romance, violence, burglary, cross-culture scenary, it just didn't deliver. I got bored 3/4 of the movie and never bothered to finish it. "Cherry" actually annoyed me. I only got this movie because of I'm a fan of Leslie Cheung; he served as the main eyecandy. The american version of Entrapment with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones is so much better.

A Light-hearted and comedic side of John Woo:
This is a definite change from the usual John Woo movies. It's a very light-hearted, comedic movie with a pinch of romance and of course action sequences. Chow Yun Fatt, Leslie Chueng and Cherie Chung are all wonderful in the movie, but it is Chow Yun Fatt who steals most of the scenes. The 3 have a great comradery and the viewer is let in on how their relationships are interwoven with flashbacks. The movie plot is one that is familiar and similar to the better known American version of the movie, but John Woo has made this his own with the addition of a splendid sub-plot and twist at the end. A very good fun movie, will leave you light-hearted and smiling at the end of it.

Questionable release of Woo's weakest Hong Kong film.:
After the emotional wreck of a masterpiece that was Bullet in the Head, director John Woo rightfully felt the need to loosen up. Hence this fluffy, downright silly, often enjoyable caper movie that merges the casts of The Killer (Chow Yun-fat, Kenneth Tsang, Chu Kong) and A Better Tomorrow (Leslie Cheung) while carving out a broad comedic tone that harkens back to Woo's older, lowbrow slapsticks (Plain Jane to the Rescue, From Riches to Rags). Chow Yun-fat has a field day in this film, hamming it up as "Cupcake/Joey" (depending on your translation), a master burglar who becomes wheelchair-bound in a job gone wrong. Some of the gags are quite forced, but when Chow is given a chance for physical comedy in the wheelchair, he's a lot of fun. Leslie Cheung anchors the film as the acrobatic Jim, who is both Chow's best friend and his closest competitor for the affection of "Red Bean/Cherie", their sister-in-crime. Kenneth Tsang's character is pretty ridiculous, though the veteran actor does his best, but the surprise delight is seeing Chu Kong, so deadly serious in The Killer, loosen up to play a kindly but none too bright cop who takes the three young people in as proteges. Woo's action choreography is dazzling as ever, and far less violent than his usual works (though still pretty high in body count compared with American action-comedies), and the best set pieces of this film (the card-throwing punk, the centerpiece second heist featuring a lot of explosives) are high entertainment. This DVD edition has been out for some time and it took me this long to check it out -- the packaging just doesn't inspire confidence. The contents herein partially affirm this suspicion. The transfer is clean, and it's great that they included the Cantonese dialogue track as an audio option. But there's something wrong with the sound mix; the music is far too loud, often drowning out the Cantonese dialogue, and I know from an old VHS copy of this film I own that the original sound mix didn't have this problem. There are also nearly no bonus materials, just trailers. It's probably harder to find bonus materials for Hong Kong films, and perhaps it's unfair to compare this to the multitude of features on the Criterion releases of The Killer and Hard-Boiled, but nonetheless, the special materials are out there in the vaults. Later UK releases of Hard-Boiled and The Killer do have added materials for us to peruse. So it's a matter of hunting it down and including it. An adequate DVD for a problematic but mostly enjoyable film.