The Thieves
Choi Dong Hoon
The story: The MacGuffin here is a dazzling necklace worth millions and the bunch of crooks after it is a pan-Asian line-up of stars. The South Korean team lead by Popie (Lee Jung Jae) and the Chinese team led by Chen (Simon Yam) are brought together by Macao Park (Kim Yun Seok). Naturally, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, especially since Popie, Macao Park and the recently released from jail Pepsee (Kim Hye Soo) share a tangled past.

Korean writer-director Choi Dong Hoon has made away with quite a stash of cash with his latest crime caper.
With more than 12.3 million tickets sold in South Korea, The Thieves is the second highest-grossing local film of all time, trailing only Bong Joon Ho’s creature-feature thriller The Host (2006), which had more than 13 million admissions.
The glittery star power on display certainly helped.
Heart-throb Lee Jung Jae of the time-travelling romance Il Mare (2000) and the erotic thriller The Housemaid (2010) is the somewhat pompous leader who knows more than he lets on.
Gianna Jun (My Sassy Girl, 2001) is cat burglar Yenicall who can make her way into any room. Nice to have the actress back in sassy, sexy mode after seeing her sleepwalk through Snow Flower And The Secret Fan (2011).
Kim Hye Soo, who had starred in Choi’s hit gambling flick Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), brings glamour and vulnerability to the role of safe- cracker Pepsi.
And that is less than half of the Korean cast.
In addition, Hong Kong stalwart Simon Yam plays a wily thief while Malaysia’s Angelica Lee Sinje is another safe-cracker with her own agenda.
In total, there are 10 professionals going after the necklace. Designing the poster to fit everyone in must have been a major challenge.
The crime capers of the Ocean’s Eleven series would seem to be an obvious reference but the grouping here is far more fractious despite the surface attempt to work together.
The scene where the Korean and Chinese teams first meet and suss out each other is fun as they trade under-the-breath insults and engage in some one-upmanship.
To Choi’s credit, he does a decent job of juggling the large cast and drawing out the interplay of the relationships among them.
Yam has a tender interlude with the boozy Chewing Gum (Kim Hae Sook), Jun flirts with the boyish Zampano (Kim Soo Hyun) while the shifting relationships among Popie, Pepsee and Macao Park threaten the entire operation.
Some character development is well and good but a heist film has to deliver the goods when it comes to the heist itself.
The bar has been set very high here with the Ocean’s Eleven series and recent thrillers such as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), in which Tom Cruise dangled from the world’s tallest building in Dubai.
There is nothing in The Thieves quite as heart- stopping or show-stopping as Cruise’s showpiece stunt but it is entertaining enough to steal away some of your time without you crying foul.
(ST)