The Thieves (2012)

Country: South-Korea
Format: movie
Genre: action
Cast: Lee Jung Jae, Gianna Jun (Jun Ji Hyun), Kim Hae Suk, Kim Soo Hyun, Kim Yun Seok, Kim Hye Soo, Simon Yam, Oh Dal Su, Angelica Lee, Kwok Cheung Tsang,
Synopsis: World's biggest theft is going to take place, when Macao Park assembles best thieves from South-Korea and Hong Kong to steal "The Tear of Sun" diamond from Asian biggest criminal Wei Yong. Tempting catch makes everyone's mouth run water and in a collective, where each person stands for own profit, you will never know where to expect a stab in the back.
Rating: 5/5
Very interesting movie, because I usually do not come across action movies like that, but thanks to my anime-club I am able to see movies out of my watch-list (and future-watch-list).

Many people compare it to "Ocean 11", but it has much more betrayal (and actually I have not seen "Ocean 11"..). Movie sold 12.98 millions of tickets and was the second best selling South-Korea movie in South-Korea box-offices. Its attraction is amazing cast and even more amazing technical side of the movie. You can see that each member of the filming-crew has put 120% into this movie (you can find many many "behind the camera" material from edkofilms channel on Youtube).

Macao Park, Popie and Pepsee were old friends, who fell apart after one mission goes out of control and Pepsee gets arrested, while Macao Park runs away with stolen gold bars. Now their awkward past-relationship brings much entrust to them. This triangle brings the most changes into the movie and also it gives many reasons why one or other acts like he/she does. Even though the past is the reason why Pepsee is not included into the plan at first, despite being the best safe-opener from South-Korea.

From Korean crew are also Chewingum, Yenicall and Zampano - who mostly do the dirty job and acting to steal the goal as Zampano is in charge of technical properties and Yenicall is the one who climbs the building walls and cuts through windows. As you might suspect then there are going to be a little "happenings" between Yenicall and Zampano, and at least for me, they brought in comedy the most, because you do not believe how funny scenes they will share. Chewingum actually thinks of it as her last job. In some way, she has given up on her life, but at the same time, she longs for quiet happy life. The actress Kim Hae Suk, even received awards for her role in the movie. She   
really did a great job, because she actually had to act different emotions, scenes and characters.

The Hong Kong crew does not seem that great, but they are not shown that much. Chen, Andrew, Julie and Johnny are rather alone standing thieves than crew. Chen also has a darker past which is connected to operation "Tear of Sun" and has almost decided to retire as well as Chewingum. Andrew is the most unprofessional and even in movie he is referred as "charity project" as he has no special skills that would make him that necessary for the whole crew, but I think that on every mission you must have someone bad who might get caught while everyone else get away, like running away from a bear - you must be at least faster than one member of the crew. Julie can open the safes by ear - her father was a well-known thief and his know-hows and techniques have shared through blood, but what others to not know, is that actually she is there to take orders from law.

Johnny was one weird character and I almost think that he was totally forgotten. Because from one moment I do not remember anything about him nor I know what happened to him.. and see for yourself that he is not even mentioned as the member of the crew in trailer!! Sooo weird.. oke oke ... Julie is not mentioned in trailer either..  THIS is the only mistake they have done with the movie, but it is a HUGE mistake. I have seen many people questioning "Where's Johnny?". He is almost like Waldo with the exception that he actually is not on the screen, while Waldo is. For the first time, I have really no idea what happened to this character or why he was missing for the most of the time. He was even half-cropped from many DVD covers and posters..

Maybe Kwok Cheung Tsang looks too usual in this movie, that he did not stand out that much and I did not caught a sight of him :/  I wish someone would give me the answer. Due to this unknown truth I will not take stars down and I hope that it has actually a logical explanation, which I will be gladly waiting.   
It is very interesting movie - full of action, comedy, changes, emotions etc. I am so happy that I was able to see it and I do recommend it to you.. even if you actually are not that big fan of action-movies. :) 

SPOILER-review: I feel like actually Yenicall, Zampano and Chewingum had the trust between them and that they would not have deceived each other and I admit that the moment Yenicall said, that she thinks that Zampano would have been happy for her and Chewingum proud of her, I almost started to cry... but because I was watching it with mostly men, it would have been too embarrassing.