TL;DR – While the plot will not be a great surprise to anyone who has watched a heist film before, the cast makes it a fun ride.

Post-Credit Scene – There are mid-credit scenes.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

The Moon Thieves Review –

Long-time readers will know that I love a good heist film, the set-up, the mission when it all goes to pot. However, I have seen how many Western filmmakers have explored the genre, and that is just a tiny section of the filmmaking community. Today, we will start fixing this by looking at a film out of Hong Kong about the surprising world of counterfeit watches.

So, to set the scene, Vincent Ma (Edan Lui) is known in the counterfeit business as someone who creates frankenwatches. These are watches made from original parts but cobbled together for many different watches. This is a lucrative, if dangerous business, even more so when he is called upon by the local crime lord Uncle (Keung To), who is the son of the original Uncle but kept the name. Uncle needs Vincent and Chief (Louis Cheung) to put a group together to replace and steal three precious Picasso watches that have been found in Tokyo. Vincent does not want to do this, but he has no choice. But then, this introduction to a broader criminal world might be just what he needs for his ultimate goal: to find the lost Moon Watch, the first watch worn on the Moon by Buzz Aldrin.

Okay, I won’t beat around the bush. This is a film called The Moon Thieves, and they introduced the Moon Watch in the first five minutes, so there was absolutely no way we were going to get through the film and not see that watch. But the filmmakers know this as they set the film’s narrative, heading right for that big reveal. I am glad about this because if they had been coy about it, this would have been a desperately frustrating film. They also use it in a very interesting way that I didn’t expect, which made the back half of the film work a lot better.

While there are some interesting moments, this was a very standard heist film. You have the specialist Vincent and safe-cracker Yoh (Anson Lo). We then add in the experienced Chief and explosives guy Mario (Michael Ning), and you have a solid core to base the film on. Setting the heist portion in Tokyo also allowed the film to mix up the visuals here and there, which kept it from being bogged down in some of the slower sections. Indeed, the whole heist scene might be the film’s most vital asset.  

There were some moments that I did have to get used to, like the use of slow-mo in the emotional moments to draw them out. Also, tonally, this film bounces between silly and serious and back again so quickly. Part of that can probably be found in the character of Uncle, who is chewing all the scenery and maybe a little more than he should. But then my man also boasts a hairstyle that uses a crimper, which is a wild choice that he owns. They do an excellent job of seeding all the twists at the end, even if some of those are a bit uncomfortable. It is not the most original scenario, but the pacing and the tension makes it work.      

In the end, do we recommend The Moon Thieves? Well, it was not the most original film I have seen in this space. However, the cast is solid, the actual heist is fun, and even if the ending is a bit too long, it still hits its mark. If you liked The Moon Thieves, we would recommend to you Extreme Job.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Moon Thieves
Directed by – Steve Yuen
Screenplay by – Ronald Chan
Music by – Yusuke Hatano
Cinematography by – Karl Tam
Edited by – Wong Hoi
Production/Distribution Companies – MakerVille & Emperor Motion Pictures
Starring – Edan Lui, Anson Lo, Louis Cheung, Michael Ning, Kwok Fung, Ben Yuen, Deon Cheung, Luna Shaw, Ray So & Keung To with Kazuya Tanabe & Ronald Lam
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: PG; Germany: na; New Zealand: na; United Kingdom: 15; United States: na