Director – John Woo – 1991 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 107m
****1/2
Lightweight caper movie bult around three orphans – two boys in love wth the third child, a girl – raised to become professional art thieves – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July, and is out on 4K UHD on Friday, 3rd August
Three orphans adopted from the street are raised together in Hong Kong by gang boss Chow (Kenneth Tsang) to become professional art thieves – with the two boys Red Bean Pudding (Chow Yun Fat from Hard Boiled, 1992; The Killer, 1987; A Better Tomorrow, 1986, all John Woo) and James (Leslie Cheung from Happy Together, Wong Kar-wai, 1997; A Chinese Ghost Story, Tsui Hark, 1987; A Better Tomorrow, John Woo, 1986) growing up equally in love with the girl Red Bean (Cherie Chung from Wild Search, Ringo Lam, 1989, An Autumn’s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987; Peking Opera Blues, Tsui Hark, 1986).
Its best set piece is the opener in which the trio steal a Modigliani painting from a moving lorry, and the whole thing benefits greatly from expertise of Remy Julien (from Bond movies Goldeneye, Martin Campbell, 1995; The Living Daylights, John Glen, 1987; For Your Eyes Only, John Glen, 1981) in the car and motorbike stunt / chase department.
A lightweight caper with roughly its first half shot on location in Paris, it owes more than a little to To Catch A Thief (Alfred Hitchcock, 1955), not least because Chow is cast in a similar professional cat burglar role to Cary Grant. If the mix of genres is unique in the Woo canon, the overall comic tone is a reminder of Woo’s career in the decade following the mid seventies as a reasonably successful director of Hong Kong comedy pictures.
The director himself later remade the film in America as the TV movie/series pilot (in US) Once A Thief / (in UK) Violent Tradition / John Woo’s Violent Tradition / John Woo’s Once a Thief (1996) which employs a mixture of Chinese and American actors but lacks the sparkle of the Cantonese language original.
Once a Thief plays in a 4K Restoration as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July 2026.
It is out on 4K UHD on Friday, 3rd August.
Trailer :