Writer: Dong-hoon Choi, Ki-cheol Lee and Seong-hun Jeong
Director: Dong-hoon Choi
The Thieves from 2012 is one of the highest-grossing films in South Korea’s history, and was screened this week at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of Hallyu! The Korean Wave, the current colourful exhibition celebrating Korea’s popular culture, and also as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival. With a huge cast, and some sharp set scenes Dong-hoon Choi’s crime caper is fun in parts but goes on for far too long.
Choi’s film throws the audience straight into the action as two women, members of a criminal gang, trick a billionaire art-collector and steal a priceless antique bowl. But the gang’s next job has them trying to steal The Tear of the Sun, a 318-carat diamond worth $20 million dollars from a hotel/casino complex. It’s such a complicated heist that the Korean gang must join forces with one from Hong Kong. These early negotiations are fraught with histories of double-crosses and failed romances.
With so many gang members, it is sometimes hard to keep up with the preparations for the theft, but all would be forgiven if the heist were to be the centrepiece of Choi’s film, where the audience would be on the edge of their seats. However, the action that takes place in Macao Casino is relatively brief, and much of the film’s second half is given up to recriminations and more double crossing.
The actors, nonetheless, give it their all especially Kim Hae-sook as Chewingum, a grumpy older woman who unexpectedly finds love, and Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae as the eternally youthful and the occasionally explosive Popie. Of course, some of The Thieves is reminiscent of the Oceans Eleven franchise and some of the more exciting stunts seem straight out of Mission Impossible. But Choi’s film is different in the way it focuses on the love lives of a few of the gang members, but these romantic twists get in the way of a good story.
Choi’s new film Alienoid opened this year’s London Korean Festival and so it’s enlightening to see his earlier epic production. Some of the sexual politics in The Thieves seem a little dated, but the film’s female characters are strong, and, for the most part, take centre stage. There’s no denying the energy and verve in this 2012 film, but for those expecting an exciting and intense heist movie may be a tad disappointed.
The 17th London Korean Film Festival 2022 runs from 3 November – 17 November in cinemas across London. For more info: https://www.koreanfilm.
