ONCE A THIEF (1991)
Discussions of John Woo’s classic run in the late 1980s to early 1990s often omit this caper, but unlike Bullet in the Head it’s not a case of it being too bleak. Plus the stars are all here; Leslie Cheung and Chow Yun-Fat return from the Better Tomorrow films, as do several other familiar faces. So are the locations the director enjoys; this time Paris. Perhaps it’s because the whole thing has a tendency to get rather silly. Some of the lead characters are named after desserts and Violet Lam’s score is very whimsical after all. The explosive set pieces are present and correct, however, there’s something off about the construction of the story itself that goes beyond some of the strange tonal shifts. Is it more than the sum of these parts?
