A World Without Thieves (2004)

I probably already surpassed the maximum of annual postings on movies made in Asia since I'm keeping the blog, but "A World Without Thieves" is the only thing I've watched this week, and my brain doesn't help my memory at this hour to dig in for another option. And after all the current one is not that bad...

A couple of crooks get through a more rough period of their "career". More precisely she seems to feel some remorse for previous actions and would like a karma change. Stuff that he doesn't understand. We have a more precise motivation coming at some point, but I'll let the movie to reveal it. Somehow, the two of them end in the same train with Dumbo. Not the elephant, but a young Chinese peasant moving from some employment back to his home village decided to settle down and start a family. And carrying with him all the money he raised = 60000 yuan (something between 7-8 thousand Euro), cash, in his hand bag. The boy, not very experienced with life, is convinced that if the wolves didn't eat him while working on the fields, neither a two legged wolf could do that. Moreover, he's sufficiently naive to make it out loud in the train station, just before leaving, annoyed by his co-workers suggestion on a safer bank transfer. The situation gets even more complicated as the same train is boarded by a gang of crooks led by uncle Li, a kung fu grandmaster in sleight of hand and peeling eggs (you'll get it when you'll watch the movie). All the movie takes place in the train, where she wants to keep valid the boy's illusion of a pure world, he wants to teach some rough reality lesson, and uncle Li wants the money and a new member in his team.

We have a slight excess of melancholy, which is typical for Chinese movies, some scenes that come from nowhere, but overall the action is coherent, with enough turns and a pretty interesting character development. On top of this the movie is visually very nice. To conclude: even though in the beginning it might look a bit shallow and lacking credibility, slowly it gains enough complexity to transform itself in a catchy solid drama.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5