He is talented pickpocket but also sends the ids back to police. On the outside he is a boring persona but he has multitude of charisma. He falls in love, which was his chance to get out of all this but couldnt. He isnt ready to let go of his talent until the karma catches up with him. Will he beat the karma or get sucked of even the last bit of conscience he has left. The hiring of non-professional actors makes this film much better.
Plot summary
Little pocket thief Wu never got away from the streets like his friends did. He realises that he is alone, as his old buddy doesn't invite him for his wedding. When he falls in love with a hooker he is forced to think about his future. Can he break with his criminal past?
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Movie Reviews
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Karma always catches up
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Unpleasant in every way
USA's AZN TV purchased the rights to this film and the network is showing it using the English title THE PICKPOCKET.
1997's THE PICKPOCKET takes amateur home-movie style movie making to amazing levels of unpleasantness. The movie depicts a long-winded series of boring wanderings of an uninteresting, confused guy. This lead character, Xiao Wu, does not simply walk about aimlessly. Viewers will unfortunately soon realize that Xiao Wu has an unsurpassed talent to seek out, and remain dormant near the most obnoxious noises to be found in China. Clanging empty tin buckets being beaten with a stick -- he is there. Every old motor in China clunking in agony -- he is there. A crying baby? Yes, you guessed it, he is there! According to THE PICKPOCKET, China is the most irritating unpleasant sounding place on planet Earth.
The only element worse than the sound of THE PICKPOCKET is the photography. The camera shakes, shakes and shakes some more. Finally, the camera stills, but then it falls to the actor's knees and just stays there until someone in the crew realizes the mistake and begins to shake the camera again. Most of the shaky film is framed in distant, long, long, long shots. The few times when the camera gets somewhat close, nothing compelling ever takes place to connect the viewer with what is happening.
The photography is murky, faded and often blurry. The use of color is -- well, there is no sign of intelligence controlling the use of color. Most every shot is held 20 times too long. Few movies are so painful to sit through. This film is painful to watch, and painful to hear. And then it simply ends.
John Woo fans might enjoy being able to hear part of the soundtrack to DIE XUE SHUANG XIONG (THE KILLER) as the lead character is hanging outside of a video store for many minutes. Anyway, be warned -- THE PICKPOCKET will steal away your good time.
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student project
There is a reason this is called a student project movie. Bad editing and shaking camera. Could have been condensed into 10 minutes. Hard to imagine to sit there and watch it from the beginning to the end.