The Thieves (2012)

A Disappointing Continuation

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This is one of the best Korean movies I've ever seen. I wasn't surprised to find out it was one of the highest grossing films at the Korean box office - this Korean/Chinese production is an international blockbuster designed for mass, global appeal. The Thieves is a heist action comedy about two teams of professional thieves teaming up for a heist with a surefire success rate, but only if each team members could avoid their personal agendas getting in the way ... and that's all you need to know about the film.The movie's biggest success is that it proves that you can have an ensemble cast with no less than 10 principal characters and still make each one of them unique and memorable. By the end of the movie, I know each character's personality, motivation and quirks. To top it off, it has an intelligent script with lots of twists and turns, always keeping you guessing. Oh, and the set-pieces! The final action scene is one of the most entertaining set-pieces I've ever seen, involving complex choreography, wire-work and amazing stunts.So yeah, do whatever you can to see it, you owe that to yourself as this is the kind of movie that Hollywood should be making and isn't. Director Choi Dong-Hoon crafts this masterful heist action comedy with such an assured hand that keeps you entertained and engaged throughout. Also, actress Jun Ji-Hyun (My Sassy Girl, My Love From The Star), is drop-dead gorgeous and absolutely magnetic on screen. She steals almost every scene she's in, and is worth the price of admission alone.

Wow, Koreans seem unstoppable these days. First their cars go from embarrassing to near aspirational, and now their movie industry makes Hollywood look like it's run by drunken, drooling, idiots (which, upon reflection, might actually not be too far removed from reality.) "The Thieves" is what "Ocean's Eleven" and all it's tedious, empty, shiny, sequels would be if they were the product of intelligent life. The plot is extremely clever and witty and keeps moving and taking unexpected twists and turns right up until the very end. The acting and cinematography are top notch, and when it's over you can't believe that more than 2 hours have passed, with subtitles at that. Even if I wanted to toss in spoilers, it would be difficult because the plot is so involved and only comes together in pieces as the movie progresses. Returning to my opening, this flick makes the best possible case that the "Ocean's" franchise should be shuttered, since this was so much better, and likely cost much less in total than what was lost to the "talent" alone in those tepid, vacuous, American productions. Plus, it comes with a 10-year warranty.

There are many aspects of this film that distinctly separates it from others. For one, the characterization - it's superb. Over time, through development and flashback, the characters become significantly fleshed out, and though the audience may initially appreciate a character at the beginning of the narrative, by the end, it might be an entirely different story, our loyalties continuously shifting, as do those of the individuals on screen.Secondly, the stunts: the fact the feature isn't filled with continuous action sequences allows us to appreciate them so much more. They are brilliantly executed, highly exhilarating, and occasionally, even with suspension of disbelief applied, beyond fathomable. Thirdly, the script - characters are witty, sassy and subtly cutthroat. Never is the script reduced to slapstick or cliché one-liners, the well executed humor at the hands of the talented actors being as fresh and fluid as one could ever hope to witness.Fourthly, the suspense. Alongside some of the hectic stunts, the film offers nail-biting entertainment as loyalties are tested and plans abseil out of control, to the extent, the question isn't so much 'who will walk away with the prize?' as it is, 'whose going to come out of this alive?' Fifthly, the music - it's rarely too serious or too laid back, immersing the viewer into the experience. Sixth, the visuals - their gorgeous. Macau and Hong Kong vibrantly come to life in a mixture of dazzling bright colors, supported by brilliant framing and directing that is truly captivating. In this sense, the feature isn't just an entertaining thrill ride - it's a gorgeous vacation - with guns, and thieves, and gold.Yenicall (Gianna Jun, who is especially outstanding in this film) is a superbly athletic thief, working alongside a crew consisting of Chewingum (Kim Hae-Sook) and Zampano (Kim Soo-Hyun), the leader of their outfit, Popie (Lee Jung-Jae), finding them a job working with an old partner of his, Macao Park (Kim Yun-Seok), who he detests for reasons that are explained over the course of the feature.Trust is a luxury that is unaffordable, and even less so when the South Korean team travel to Hong Kong to meet an equally talented group of Chinese thieves they will be working with over the duration of the job: to steal the Tear of the Sun, a prized diamond that can be sold for 20 million. Leading the Chinese team is Chen (Simon Yam), alongside Andrew (Oh Dal-Su), Johnny (Kwok Cheung Tsang) and Julie (Angelica Lee). The character who is most shocked of all however is Macao, to discover that Popie has brought with him an undisclosed thief, recently released from prison: Pepsee (Kim Hye-Soo), whose loathing of Macao's character, alongside her love for him, is explored throughout the film.Though there are more men participating in the film than women, the story fantastically allows the women to continuously be at the forefront of the plot, each of them with sizable, engaging roles that occasionally overshadow their male counterparts. With each of the thieves having agendas of their own, and with nothing been too sacred, or too illegal to try, the ever continuous suspense constantly submerges the audience as they try to figure out who will experience, as Yenicall calls it, a 'happy ending.' There's little else I can write to convince you, dear reader, to watch this particular film, except - you will be doing yourself a serious disservice by not doing so.

The purported selling point here is so lazy and easy it's slutty: the most anticipated star-studded action blockbuster 2012! Unless The Thieves intends to pay homage to The Avengers, this year's only rightful owner to that headline, we can't verify the credibility of that audacious claim. Granted, the movie's A-list ensemble of the most bankable stars from around the region places it in a perfect position to sell itself to the usual fandom, but I'm usually sceptical of such an approach to filmmaking. The good news? The Thieves is everything it pledges to be in marketing and message – epic, smart, funny and well- shot. The bad news? It's not quite everything it needs to be.Hardened robber Macao Park wants to steal a $20 million diamond from a casino in Macau. In order to pull off the perfect heist, he enlists the services of Korean and Chinese thieves. What looks to be a smooth heist suddenly shatters into a botched job as each thief begins to reveal their true motives and lots of betrayals and grudges surface before any thief can get to the diamond. The real winner here is Macao Park, who has deliberately assembled this double-crossing team of thieves so that he can escape with the diamond. Unfortunately, trouble catches up to him before he can safely pocket the prize. Each thief must now fight to survive and find the diamond before time runs out.Let's face it: this is the sort of heist movie that can only look good with a greedy scale, even if it's with one that's only initially superficial. Director Choi Dong-hoon doesn't scrimp here, getting stars from Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia and wrangling with a multilingual dialogue that speaks Korean, Mandarin, Japanese and English. It makes for an amusing preamble that sees our group of thieves engage in almost endless banter, effectively using the barriers of language to allow one party to criticize the other without the other actually realising it. The thieves eventually manage to pull their thinking caps together, navigating through the complex security at the casino with an equally cartoonish verve. So far, so good, right?That question is important because the movie totally loses control once it hits the second half. I'll admit upfront that the movie is very smart – or at least its multitude of subplots is. But the fundamental problem with The Thieves is that it has well over a dozen major characters competing for screen time. I can't stress enough how a burgeoning character count is to the detriment of a movie's quality. With so many personal agendas / betrayals / grudges on offer, The Thieves struggles to tie all its subplots into a concise, clear and easily comprehensible script, instead allowing them to dart uncontrollably in all directions. It's incredibly labourious to keep track of who's doing what or even which diamond is real. Above all else, The Thieves would have worked better as a TV serial; condensed into movie length, it wears out any form of sanity too quickly.That's not to say The Thieves isn't without any more charms. The movie is a stacked deck of balletically choreographed action scenes that become increasingly daring, and we dare say reckless, as it progresses. Characters are allowed to fight in places that don't traditionally grace the screen for action scenes, including an elevator shaft and the surface of a building. There's an action scene which, in the perfect storm of horrible coincidence, is virtually the same as Tom Cruise's vertiginous adventure on the surface of Dubai's Burj Khalifa tower in last year's Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. The only thing that's better than this action segment is the relentless pace at which the movie pumps out gunfire.Watching The Thieves is like flirting with James Bond. You get a curious mix of charisma and danger, and you don't know whether you should stay or leave: the charisma is appealing, but the danger is off-putting. The Thieves is far from perfection, but if you're willing to overlook the messy second half and indulge in the amusement and exhilaration of the package, then this so-called most anticipated star-studded action blockbuster 2012 is worth a visit to the cinema.