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March 18, 2024
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‘The Thieves’ is an Older Film That’s Still Worth a Look

Still, the three-year-old movie maintains much of its original appeal, and if one has yet to experience the high-tension fun of this movie, this dubbed version will do.

The Thieves continues the trend of odd choices for the SineAsia program. The source of the oddness in this case is the film's age, the movie produced all the way back in 2012. This Tagalog translation seems terribly belated. Still, the three-year-old movie maintains much of its original appeal, and if one has yet to experience the high-tension fun of this movie, this dubbed version will do. Not everything translates well, but when the film is at the peak of its heist movie construction, matters of language hardly matter.

Popie (Lee Jung-Jae) leads a crew of thieves in South Korea. Macao Park (Kim Yun-seok), and old colleague of his, coerces him and his crew into doing a risky casino heist with a twenty million dollar prize. Park also approaches a Hong Kong crew led by the veteran Chen (Simon Yam). The two crews work together to steal a massive diamond desired by a very dangerous Chinese gangster. But everyone on this crew seems to have his or her own agenda, and long buried secrets come to light as these thieves play out their complex game of bluffs and double crosses.

It takes a while to set everything up. This movie weaves a pretty complex tale filled with plenty of characters with opposing motivations. The first act takes a little too long, the movie investing a lot of its time on spoken exposition that becomes redundant as the plot plays out its narrative beats. Once that’s over with, though, the film turns into a well-oiled action machine. While the plot is convoluted, the film tends to keep its mechanics simple and easy to follow. There are many parts to the central heist, but it mostly hinges on simple beats that have the characters playing their assigned roles.

The movie once again starts testing one’s patience in the final hour, where every narrative twist is laid out and explained. Thankfully, the film matches this endgame exposition with some of the best action sequences that South Korea has ever produced. Once the film gets past explaining everyone’s motivations, it basically heads into a single glorious set piece that involves gunfights on the side of an apartment building, and several characters making daring escapes through a violent firefight between gangsters and police.

The Thieves is also being sold on the fact that it brings together some of the biggest stars of Asia. And this film is a pretty great introduction to some of the best stars of Hong Kong and South Korea. There is the magnificent Kim Yun-seok, whose low-key toughness always provides a compelling center to any film. There’s the always entertaining Gianna Jun, who finds genuine appeal and surprising depth in playing flighty, difficult characters. There are the older players, Simon Yam and Kim Hae-Suk, who build a lovely little story pretty much on their own. This is a tremendous cast of actors, and the film more or less gives everyone an opportunity to show off, even within the ridiculous structure of this convoluted heist.

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The Thieves is one of South Korea’s highest grossing films of all time for a reason. It is terribly entertaining stuff, its action sequences rivaling those of any gigantic Hollywood production. And it happens to star some of the best actors of the region to boot. If one hasn’t seen this three-year-old film yet, then this is as good a time as any, with the film actually being in our theaters. Tagalog translation doesn’t serve the film particularly well, as more than one language is used in the film. Still, there are long stretches where that doesn’t really matter. If one can get a subtitled version, that would be better. But this version seems to be the best that we’re going to get on our big screens.

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