- Once a Thief (TV series)
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For other uses, see Once a Thief (disambiguation).
Once a Thief Also known as John Woo's Once a Thief Genre Action Written by Steven Barwin
Phil BedardDirected by Steve DiMarco
Peter D. MarshallStarring Ivan Sergei
Sandrine Holt
Nicholas Lea
Jennifer DaleCountry of origin Canada Language(s) English No. of seasons 1 No. of episodes 22 Production Location(s) Toronto, Ontario, Canada Running time 60 minutes Production company(s) Alliance Communications Corporation Broadcast Original channel CTV Television Network Original run 15 September 1997 – 2 May 1998 Once a Thief (also billed as John Woo's Once a Thief) was a 1997 Canadian television show inspired by the 1996 film of the same name.
Contents
Premise
Li Ann Tsei, an orphan who grew up amongst the Chinese Tang family - a ruthless criminal operation - falls in love with Mac Ramsey, a thief who works for the family. However, when she is betrothed to Tang heir Michael, the two fake their deaths in an attempt to flee the country. Li Ann escapes, but Mac is arrested and left to rot in a Chinese prison.
Two years later, he is released and taken to Canada where a mysterious woman known as the Director employs him to work for her crime-fighting institution. He soon learns that he will be working as part of a team with Li Ann, and the man she was engaged to, Victor Mansfield, a disgraced police officer. The trio soon are forced to work together under the manipulative Director.
After the success of the 1996 film, which was used as a pilot for the series, Glenn Davis and William Laurin created the series, which premiered in September 1997, with John Woo as executive producer. The show started out with strong ratings, which quickly fell, and the show was put on hiatus in November after 9 episodes. When it returned, in January 1998, ratings had significantly decreased. All 22 episodes of the show aired during the season, but it was not renewed, a fact which the producers were informed of before filming the last episodes of the series.
Main cast
- Sandrine Holt as Li Ann Tsei
- Nicholas Lea as Victor Mansfield
- Ivan Sergei as Mac Ramsey
- and Jennifer Dale as The Director
Recurring Cast
- Robert Ito as the Tang Godfather
- Michael Wong as Michael Tang, his son, originally betrothed to Li Ann
- Howard Dell as Agent Dobrinsky, the Director's hard-nosed lapdog, played by Nathaniel Deveaux in the movie
- James Allodi as Nathan Muckle, the paranoid librarian at the agency who believes everyone but Vic to be aliens.
- Greg Kramer as Mr. Murphy, one of the "cleaners", assassins who makes problems go away.
- Julian Richings as Mr. Camier, Murphy's partner.
- Victoria Pratt as Jackie Janczyk, the daughter of a mob boss, who comes to work for the Agency.
DVD release
On June 21, 2011, Alliance Home Entertainment released John Woo's Once a Thief: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 (Canada only) for the very first time.[1]
Reception
- Episode 1 The Big Bang Theory was number 7 in the Canadian Neilsen ratings, and episode 2 Rave On was number 14. By the end of its run, the show was at the bottom of the list. In episode 20, there is a reference to the audience's unfavorable reaction to the show: when the Director is told that the trio is coming along well, she replies "that depends on who you talk to."
Allusions
Several episodes are parodies of other TV shows and film genres:
- Episode 9, Jaded Love, spoofed black and white mystery movies of the '40s and '50s.
- Episode 18 features several scenes which are parodies of The X-Files, the show on which Nicholas Lea played Alex Krycek:
- The characters of Agent Clancy (Alexa Gilmour) and Agent Diller (Graham Abbey) are spoofs of Agents Mulder and Scully
- The investigation is often done by torchlight, and timestamps appear at the bottom of the screen.
- The Mulder lookalike has a scene in which he calls Vic "Ratboy" (the nickname of Krycek) and Vic calls him "Spooky" (the nickname of Mulder)
- Nathan serves as a kind of The Lone Gunmen-esque figure.
- Agent Clancy and Agent Diller have a cell phone conversation like Scully and Mulder often do. However, they are within a few feet of each other and in plain view at the time.
- Episode 19, Shaken Not Stirred, spoofs James Bond-esque spy dramas.
- Episode 19's subplot, featuring the organisation's assassins Camier and Murphy, is a parody of the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot.
References
External links
Categories:- Crime television series
- CTV Television Network shows
- Canadian drama television series
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