Language: Cantonese w/ Chinese and English subtitles
Cast: Julian Cheung Chi-Lam, Gigi Lai Chi, Michael Fitzgerald Wong Man-Tak, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Edmond
So Chi-Wai, Peter Ngor Chi-Kwan, Kim Ip (Yip Kwong-Kim), Joe Cheung Tung-Cho, Timmy Ho Bo-Sing
Investment: $3.5 Millions
Length of the shoot: 5 months
Shooting Location: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Mongolia
SK - Undercover cop (and pretty-boy) Julian Cheung (as Ha-Ko) follows international arms dealer (and pretty-boy) Michael
Wong ("Dan"), from Hong Kong to Mongolia and back, in this thriller / comedy / road movie by Cha Chuen-yee. Both are on
the run: Wong has missiles to sell, and Cheung flees the HK police, who think he's betrayed them. After Cha Chuen-yee's
stunningly good pair of twisted gangster comedies from 1996 (Once Upon a Time in Triad Society 1 & 2), I had high
expectations. A promising beginning, but the film sags into genre-mired mechanism: one tediously 'Speed'-derived truck chase
leads to another. The psychological complexity hinted at in the first half hour fails to pan out. But all 'Theft' can deliver is a faint
echo (hommage? copy?) of John Woo and Ringo Lam's essays on the same blurred-boundary theme. Top notch photography
and editing: it's good to see that the industry still takes for granted this techical standard. The score, by Johnny Njo, is better
than it needs to be, and helps focus the film's energy now and then. Under-financed special effects don't quite make up the
difference, although we are given the substantial pleasure of watching a rather large flaming container truck plunge into the sea,
then go boom, several times.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO A SHORT REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE? IF SO, PLEASE E-MAIL me.
