“The Thieves” the best of Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae

One Line Review: “The Thieves” is the Best of Korean Heist Movies

Title: The Thieves (도둑들)

Director: Choi Dong-hoon (최동훈)

Starring: Kim Yun-seok (김윤석), Kim Hyesoo (김혜수), Lee Jung-jae (이정재), Gianna Jun (전지현), Simon Yam (任達華), Kim Hae-sook (김해숙), Oh Dal-soo (오달수), Kim Soo-hyun (김수현)

Release date: July 25th, 2012 South Korea
Rating: 4.5/5

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2330866/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_the%2520thieves

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_thieves

“The Thieves”, Crime Planning Movie

“The Thieves” can be said to fall into the typical crime planning movie genre.

A crime-planning movie is a movie in which a group of criminals with different characteristics come together to accomplish a single antisocial goal, and then focuses on the process of planning and achieving this goal.

“The Thieves”, Korea’s Ocean’s Eleven?

In this sense, the movie “The Thieves” has been compared to “Ocean’s Eleven” even before its release. It’s the Korean Ocean’s Eleven.

However, “The Thieves” is more of a crime plan movie than Ocean’s Eleven.

By their very nature, crime-planning movies reveal an anti-social purpose, and they rarely have happy endings because they feature criminals who are both human and socially unacceptable.

Because of the nature of criminals, they often beat each other up over their betrayals, die in the process of stealing, and even when they do get their goods, it often ends badly.

Ocean’s Eleven, on the other hand, is a movie where the thieves are the epitome of the genre.

People die trying to escape, people don’t trust each other, people are betrayed, and it’s not a happy ending.

In the case of the two people who can be seen as having their own happy ending, they can be seen as being able to escape from these laws, social order, because they show their own goodness (?) and loyalty even among thieves.

But they also end with an open ending, and we don’t know what the outcome will be outside of the movie.

“The Thieves”, Hong Kong movie & romance

If anything, Thieves has many of the characteristics of a Hong Kong movie. There’s romance, which we’re used to seeing, and the action sequences that on a tightrope in a building in Busan.

Bringing in the Hong Kong mafia and the presence of Hong Kong actor like Simon Yam play a part in this, but the overall atmosphere and sentiment are similar.

In terms of Hong Kong cinematic romance, the middle-aged comic romance between Simon Yam and Kim Hae-sook was a highlight.

In particular, the scene where the glass shards scattered like cherry blossoms in slow motion was very beautiful. The romance between Kim Hyesoo and Kim Yun-seok is not without its commercial aspects. But I think it showed the tender love that they have for each other even if they don’t express it out loud.

Small Flaw

Kim Soo-hyun and Gianna Jun’s romance… Actually, it’s not even a romance, it’s Kim Soo-hyun’s one-man show. I would say the biggest flaw of the movie is the actor himself, Kim Soo-hyun.

It broke the flow and emotional line of the movie, and I felt like it was forced in. In fact, I think the movie would have been better off without him. It seems like a compromise with the commercial side.

Conclusion

Anyway, overall, each actor does a good job of portraying characters, creating a pleasant rhythm to the movie.
In particular, Gianna Jun takes her crazy character that people loved and upgrades it with action scenes.

Their individual personalities and the rhythm makes for a pleasantly engaging movie.