To Catch a Thief
Reviewed by Jack Sobjack
After swallowing one too many goldfish,
Do Do Cheng -- an overworked workaholic, decides that getting out of the
city and moving to the country is the best solution to her stress. But instead
of reducing her stress it only seems to get worse when a thief carrying stolen
diamonds escapes pursuing cops by hiding out in Do Do's new house.
Not only that, but poor Do Do has met her
new neighbors. Grand Grandpa (Ng Man Tat) and his son Berlin, or better known
to the locals as Grandpa. They seem like nice people. They get most of the
town folk to help her move her things into the new house. They bring her
gifts. However, these good deeds come with a price. And good old Uncle Tat
shamelessly charges her for everything. She can either pay all at once or
by installments. How generous! And to prove this, his son, says that if she
doesn't pay she may find ox excrement on her porch. Do Do's boyfriend finds
this quite funny much to her dismay as she was just bragging how helpful
and friendly the people here are.
Do Do's also having problems with her boyfriend (Tony Leung Ka fai).
Pleading that he quit his dangerous job as a cop so that they can spend more
time together. And to make things worse for Tony, a new transfer has arrived
at the station where he works.
The No. 1 Killer: Mosquito Paper (Moon Lee) is an overzealous cop who is
assigned to work with Tony on a case. Many of the officers fear Mosquito
Paper because she'll do anything to catch the criminals. One scene has Moon
jumping on the roof of a car and pounding the windshield. When she is flung
from the speeding vehicle Tony asks if she's all right and then tells her
to be more careful. Moon informs Tony she is prepared to die and that she'll
do whatever it takes to stop them. The funny thing is, after that, when a
call comes in to check out a simple disturbance everyone at the station tries
to make sure Moon doesn't find out about it.
Even though this 1991 film is a comedy there
is quite a bit of action. And while some of it is played for laughs it doesn't
come off as corny as I was expecting. Moon has quite a few good fight scenes
where (in classic Moon-style) she tears apart her adversaries.
I found To Catch A Thief to be quite entertaining. Plenty of laughs and solid
action although a bit uneven at times. I'm not sure this film is for everybody,
though. If you're a big Do Do or Moon fan then by all means check this one
out. There's some odd humor in the one! One scene that had me rolling was
when Do Do was giving little Grandpa a sex education lesson (he asked that
infamous "where do babies come from" question to which Do Do replied: "I'll
do it together with a man I love. He'll put a seed in my body. And the seed
will grow every day. And one day a beautiful baby will be born." Then Grandpa
says, "Fine. I've got a melon seed. I want to put it inside your body.").
D'oh!!!
My rating for this film: 6.5