Once a Thief

Version légère agréable du thème de l'amitié, typique de John Woo, agrémentée d'une action vive. Un film plus gai et plus positif que les plus grandes œuvres du maître et proportionnellement moins excitant. Mais les personnages sont sympathiques, l'action maintient traditionnellement un niveau élevé et il n'y a pas de retournement surprenant manquant. (05/08/2005)

Brilliant shootouts, guns of all kinds, wheelchair shooting, and C4 kickboxing. An action-packed flick with all the trimmings. (20/12/2004)

In terms of Woo’s Hong Kong movies, this is unusually mediocre, and should be ignored, while concentrating on his serious stuff. Although John Woo gets the comedy timing right, it doesn’t suit the serious story and so what we get is a humdrum hybrid. As always, this is held above water by the charisma of Chow Yun-Fat, but I probably don’t even have to remind anybody of that fact. The pleasant thing about this is that the central acting duo headed by the director doesn’t balk at making fun of his own greatest hits, although this has no positive influence on the movie as a whole. (19/07/2006)