For this 1991 action comedy from Hong Kong, director John Woo took a break from his ultraviolent thrillers; it was made a year after
Bullet in the Head
, and a year before
Hard-Boiled
. Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung, and Cherie Chung portray a trio of orphans who have grown to become art thieves. When their foster father (Kenneth Tsang), a powerful crime boss, forces them into stealing a painting, they pull off the job but are double-crossed. To get even, the trio plans a heist to steal the painting back. The three lead characters are funny and romantic; they're daring art thieves in the tradition of "The Cat" from
To Catch a Thief
or
The Pink Panther
, and the film evokes the same cosmopolitan feel.
Once a Thief
is far less bloody than Woo's gangster pictures, but in this film, the burglary sequences possess all the astounding grace of his other films' gunfights.