ONCE A THIEF is a fun movie and this DVD is better than the usual Media Asia releases. ONCE A THIEF features Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung, and Cherie Chung as swashbuckling art thieves who use gadgets, brains, and guns to get the job done.

As far as Media Asia DVD's go, this is one of the better ones. The picture quality itself, isn't washed out looking like other Media Asia releases. I was pleasantly surprised with the image quality. The darker scenes held up nicely. Usually the dark scenes tend to get noisy but these were fine. Maybe because this was a John Woo movie, the original film elements were kept in good condition.

The sound is a Dolby 5.1 remix. I would much rather have preferred the original mono soundtrack. I have to say that this sound mix isn't bad. Most of the sound comes from the front speakers if not all of it. The music and sound effects don't overpower the vocals and are pretty well mixed. The soundtrack wasn't distracting but I wonder why they insist on using the remixes. If all the sound is going to come out of the front speakers, it might as well be a mono mix.

The extras include a trailer for the movie and a Media Asia commercial. The filmographies and bios are short and play up recent accomplishments of all the stars and John Woo.

ONCE A THIEF is a really good movie and this DVD is really enjoyable. There are lots of great action scenes and won't disappoint. This is definitely one to get.