Once A Thief
Joe: Chow Yun-Fat
Jim: Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing
Cherie: Cherie Chung
Directed by: John Woo
IMDb link: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0101020
other links:
Version reviewed: DVD
Ratings:
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DVD Audio: 8 of 10
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DVD Video: 9 of 10
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Subtitles: 8 of 10
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Story: 5 of 10
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Performances: 6 of 10
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CYF: 7 of 10
A big-budget stylish art-heist comedy with lots of action finds Chow
Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung and Cherie Chung cast as Joe, Jim and Cherie.
Now a trio of famous art thieves, they were friends from childhood who
grew up under the rough tutelage
of a cruel self-serving thief (played with a surprising amount of
menace, especially for a comedy, by Kenneth Tsang Kong) but also given
guidance by a kindly policeman (a small role for Chu Kong). As the film opens,
we see Joe, Jim and Cherie cavorting about France as they plan to steal a
Modigliani painting for a corrupt collector.
A fun-loving, frivolous bunch, Cherie is dreaming of a wedding to
Joe inside "Nasty Dame" (known to the rest of us as Notre Dame)
Cathedral; Jim is lounging about in the Parisian sunshine looking
cool in his motorcycle jacket and Joe is keeping one eye on Cherie
and the other on the beach, hoping for a glimpse of Brigitte Bardot
or Gina Lollabrigida. Supremely confident in their superior
abilities, Joe is the master planner and technician of the group,
Jim is the brave and daring thief and Cherie serves as pickpocket
(for keys to museum vaults and other small previous objects) and lookout...
as well as, we are led to speculate, mistress to both men though her
primary relationship is with Joe.
When Joe and Jim give Cherie a cake to celebrate her birthday, she
is encouraged to make a wish and blow out the candles. Her wish -
much to the discomfort of the two men - is that the three should
give up their lives of crime and settle down. Without saying "no"
they never say "yes", and within a few days they are back at it
again, this time to steal a painting from a private vault, hidden
deep inside what amounts to an armed fortress.
After the heist goes horribly wrong, Jim returns from the scene minus
Joe and he and Cherie return to Hong Kong, both heartbroken; they find
solace in one another and are married. Far from giving up his life
as a thief, Jim pursues it to an infinite degree, working for their
evil pseudo-father and making them both immensely rich.
One evening while grocery shopping Jim glimpses someone out of the
corner of his eye and follows the man outside, and here he sees Joe,
now in a wheelchair. Immediately filled with mixed emotions, Jim
does not tell Cherie that Joe is still alive, and the rest of the
movie deals with the revenge that Joe and Jim take on their cruel
foster father, as well as a tentative exploration of the underlying
current of tension between them over Cherie.
This is a good film, but not a great one. Either the first half of
the film is nothing more than setup for the second, or it is two
films which were spliced together without complete success. The
action sequences, especially those during the fortress escapade, are
masterfully done and very enjoyable to watch. The sometimes sly way
that the relationship between Joe and Cherie, and Jim and Cherie is
developed tends to be a bit annoying at times; if it's a three-way,
then tell us or at least make it so that we can feel strongly one
way or another, but sometimes the direction seems almost to snigger
at the idea one moment and romanticize it the next and that is
disappointing.
The role of Cherie is never allowed be fully realized; she is, like
women in most Woo films, more of a plot device than
anything else. We know that she is a cause of romantic competition
between Jim and Joe, we know that she is competent at being a setup
for the two men to pull off their cons, we know that she is loved by
both men but we never find out why she is with them, or why
she is primarily with Joe at the beginning, or how she came to be
who she is. She just is. For John Woo this seems enough.
For the viewer who is as interested in the characters and their
interaction as they are the scenery and the action, it isn't. Cherie Chung
is a very competent actress (just see her performance in An Autumn's Tale
for proof) so I can only lay the blame for the vacuity of Cherie the character
at the feet of the director/screenwriter, i.e.: John Woo. As an example of
the empty space that is left in the film where Cherie is concerned, when at long
last she is reunited with Joe, whom she loved deeply before his reputed
demise, she is a total blank. Confusion, grief, railing against fate, even
anger at how she has been deceived could have been a credible reaction but
instead she seems to feel nothing other than a slight desire for Joe
to assist her new husband in staying alive during a new heist. If Cherie
had been a man, she would have been put through the wringer. As it is,
she seems as surprised to see Joe as to find out that her Avon lady had
moved to a new address.
At times Chow Yun-Fat seems to be unsure whether to play this
broadly (as in the final comedic fight sequences or in the coda), or
to give it more of a dry flair (as in the scenes seen under the
opening credits). One can only wonder at the direction he received
to turn in such an unbalanced performance. As always though he is
thoroughly enjoyable in his comedic role, as well as in the action
sequences. My major gripe with his
role is that it too is a bit of a split personality; at one time we
are given to believe that he is a suave womanizer, but at the next
turn Joe shows a remarkably boyish attitude toward women in general
and Cherie in particular.
Leslie Cheung and Chow Yun-Fat do not have much of a screen chemistry together,
though whether this is from personal or artistic differences I have no idea;
the action scenes, as in A Better Tomorrow parts 1 and 2 are fine,
but when it comes to actual personal interaction of the characters of Joe and
Jim there really isn't much there. Unfortunately much of the plot revolves
around Woo's familiar theme (executed to utter perfection in The Killer) of
brotherly self-sacrifice and it's hard to believe that these two men would be
willing to give up his seat on a bus to the other one, let alone the beautiful
Cherie or their very lives.
This film could have been great - should have been great, considering
the great cast, the huge budget, the exotic (for Hong Kong) locales and the
intriguing storyline, not to mention a renowned director who is as well known
in Asia for his comedies as for his action films. Unfortunately this picture
doesn't hit the mark. At times it's aimed too high, at times too low, but it
never really gets centered. That's a shame, too because with everything it
had going for it, it could have been a contender.
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