Once a Thief

Having established himself as Hong Kong cinema’s master of the heroic bloodshed genre, director John Woo took a detour into lighter territory with this rollicking, typically stylish comic caper, which casts superstars Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung, and Cherie Chung as a trio of orphans raised by a crime lord to be professional art thieves. When they jet off to Paris to steal a Modigliani masterpiece, their high-risk heist is complicated not only by the curse that has supposedly been placed on the painting but by romantic rivalry.