Recent Viewing: The Thieves

I recently watched the second highest crossing tim in South Korean history, The Thieves, which was released in 2012. In the U.S.A. the film is owned by WellGo I have recently been on an asian film spree and have been pleased with some of the titles I have seen. Check out the trailer below for a look at the film.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDC9QS3MRCs&w=560&h=315]

Synopsis-The film starts with a group of Korean burglars, executing an art heist. A young woman named Yanicall is introducing a young rich tycoon to her fellow thief acting as her mother, by the nickname of Chewing Gum. While the fake mother distracts the young man, Yanicall is able to spring into action and steal an expensive piece of Chinese art. She is able to complete the heist throughout he help of Popie and Zampano. After the heist they are visited by the police and decide that they must leave South Korea for a bit. The group teams up with a group of Chinese thieves and plan on one last group heist. The heist will involve a piece of jewelry that they can sell for $20 million.

Everyone in the group starts to reveal their own agendas and plans to do with the money from the heist. It’s every thief for them-self as the plan starts to fall apart.

Review- The Thieves has a nice mix of action and comedy. There are certain characters that have the comedic relief role and play into those roles well. The film has a nice pacing to it and doesn’t seem to bog down in areas like some films tend to do, I think the comedy aspect helps in times with this. Since the film is an action movie at it’s core, there are several amazing stunts that are well shot.

The two gangs of thieves have an interesting chemistry together that adds an interesting dynamic to the thief/big heist films genre. It’s almost as if they took the buddy cop film and turned it into a buddy gang film. The true value of the story is the depth of the overall story.

On the surface it is a heist movie, but each character has their own backstory and motivation which is the added value. Throughout the film some of the characters will drop hints of their motives, requiring the viewer to choose which thief they are pulling for.

If you are a fan of action films, make sure to check out The Thieves on Netflix.

Dub Quality- Subbed on Netflix.